Hamster Kombat ‘HamsterVerse’, Telegram Game Airdrop Updates

The crypto and NFT gaming house is busier than ever recently, what with outstanding video games beginning to launch, token airdrops piling up, and a seemingly fixed array of different issues taking place always. It’s lots to soak up!

Fortunately, Decrypt’s GG is throughout it. And in the event you want a fast option to get caught up on the most recent strikes round crypto video video games, we’re joyful to current This Week in Crypto Video games.

Our weekend roundup serves up the most important information from the previous week-plus—that is an prolonged version as a result of holidays—together with a number of different tidbits you might need missed.

Greatest information

Hamster Kombat TON layer-2: After the fourth-largest gaming token launch of 2024, the makers of Telegram tap-to-earn recreation Hamster Kombat revealed plans to create a layer-2 community on high of The Open Community (TON).

This got here after a decentralized autonomous group (DAO) vote overwhelmingly voted in favor of the transfer, with 1.1 billion HMSTR token voting energy in favor and simply 104,368 in opposition to. Nonetheless, it is value noting that the high two voters maintain over 88% of all voting energy as of this writing, giving a few whales immense affect.

Previous to this, the devs introduced that Hamster Kombat’s hotly anticipated (and much-delayed) second season shall be “greater than only a recreation,” with three video games now within the works to develop into the core of an leisure ecosystem utilizing the IP. Known as HamsterVerse, a closed beta is already underway for 30,000 neighborhood members.

Off the Grid stands tall: As the tip of the yr dawned, Avalanche-based shooter Off the Grid raked in some media accolades. Not solely did it win GG’s Recreation of the 12 months, however the battle royale shooter additionally received Gam3s’ Recreation of the 12 months award and made it to a Rolling Stone year-end gaming checklist.

Gunzilla Video games shared its 2025 plans with Decrypt alongside the GOTY honors. Most notably, this contains an estimated Q1 2025 date for its GUNZ community to enter mainnet, which might allow its GUN token to be freely traded. Earlier than then, the studio desires to launch ranked and solo queue modes, and open up the remaining 80% of the map whereas kicking off the sport’s storyline.

After that, Gunzilla shall be trying to onboard third-party builders to the GUNZ community, and is even eying a attainable Telegram mini app for the ecosystem. It ought to be a giant yr for one in every of crypto gaming’s greatest success tales thus far.

Illuvium’s subsequent steps: Crypto gaming franchise Illuvium introduced how will probably be transferring ahead within the new yr. The mission beforehand launched three titles that fed into one another, each via shared sources and a story loop—however specializing in all three titles has been too difficult. Going ahead, the crew will prioritize efforts on one recreation at a time, beginning with the auto-battler Illuvium Area.

The prolonged weblog publish additionally touches on plans to cut back microtransactions, add extra content material, and lift extra funding. Maybe most importantly, the publish ponders the potential of quickly shutting down the flagship title Illuvium Overworld till it’s a “totally realized expertise.” However coming into 2025, bettering the Overworld MMO expertise is claimed to be the Illuvium crew’s “high precedence.”

ICYMI

• Telegram recreation Catizen distributed rewards to airdrop move holders on Friday, which noticed holders obtain three completely different tokens.
• Iconic gaming model Atari revealed a brand new handheld console, the “My Arcade.”
• Zoo, a surging Telegram recreation with over 12 million gamers, confirmed that its mining section will finish on January 31 and that one in-game ZOO token shall be equal to at least one future on-chain token.
  
• Sonic SVM confirmed that gamers of its TikTok tap-to-earn recreation will obtain a SONIC airdrop on the Solana blockchain.

• Crypto buying and selling card recreation Parallel crossed 6 million video games performed within the historical past of its existence, with builders claiming that it at present averages 200,000 video games per week.
• Telegram recreation Cat Gold Miner introduced that its token shall be listed on Bitget, Gate, MEXC, and different exchanges on Thursday, January 9.
• Somebody turned the long-lasting first-person shooter Doom right into a CAPTCHA human verification problem.

• GameStop meme inventory icon Roaring Kitty posted a GIF that despatched gaming inventory Unity Software program surging on Thursday.
• Gaming prediction market Forkcast introduced it’s going to launch onto Ethereum sidechain gaming community Ronin.
• Parallel’s open beta Season 11, referred to as Hounds of Havoc, kicked off on Thursday.

• Crypto shooter Shrapnel recapped 2024, saying that it hosted over 3.7 million classes of the sport.
• Cell crypto recreation Honeyland began its Historic Bee minting occasion, with gamers being rewarded in SOL prizes.
• Ubisoft’s blockchain battle enviornment shooter Captain Laserhawk: The G.A.M.E. confirmed off its battle move.

GG highlight

Listed here are a number of of our unique tales from this previous couple weeks that we expect are nicely value a weekend learn:

Edited by Andrew Hayward