Illuvium is an open-world RPG adventure game built on the Ethereum blockchain, and is one of the most hyped NFT gaming projects in the DeFi space.

lluvium’s native token, ILV, has posted a staggering 916% gain over the last 3 months, with a highly bullish outlook on the game and its ecosystem, despite the fact that the launch of the game has been pushed back to 2022 from the fourth quarter of 2021.

We examine why Illuvium has generated so much attention, and dive deeper into the game’s core mechanics and ecosystem.

What is Illuvium?

Illuvium brands itself as an open-world decentralized game, where players take the role of a survivor of a transport vessel in an intergalactic space fleet, which has discovered a ruined and mythical planet upon investigating a distress call.

Players can freely roam the planet to find and capture Illuvials, which are creatures with special powers that are native to the planet.

Players are then able to assemble teams of Illuvials, which can form symbiotic relationships with other creatures based on common affinities (founded on 5 elements) or class (founded on 5 different Illuvial types), and complete quests or battle other players.

All in-game creatures and items will be NFTs which can be freely traded amongst players. 

The game’s whitepaper positions the game as one with a more immersive experience than what players would experience in other popular NFT games such as Axie Infinity. The game also has an emphasis on exploration and adventuring alongside the battles that players can engage in.

The developers of the game also place an emphasis on cinematic quality 3D special effects which will be found in the game (Illuvium is built in Unreal Engine 4.26).

This differentiates it from current games in the DeFi space, which are mostly operating with more simplistic renders and game environments.

How will the game run on Ethereum?

Illuvium is built on the Immutable X L2 network, which enables gasless transactions through a process known as Zero-Knowledge Rollup (ZK).

In essence, Immutable X will allow players to trade NFTs and participate in in-game transactions instantaneously and with no need to pay transaction fees.

According to the team, the Immutable engine supports over 9,000 transactions per second, and is considered a best-in-class solution for scaling on Ethereum.

It will be interesting to observe how well the Immutable engine runs when the game is launched, given that other popular NFT games have suffered badly from growing pains in terms of user and transaction volume.

Why are details about Illuvium so limited?

It is important to note that Illuvium was earmarked for a launch in quarter 4 of 2021, although this has now been pushed back into 2022. The developers have yet to launch NFT sales of in-game creatures and in-game Land, and it remains to be seen how the developers will conduct the sale of these assets.

There is currently no encyclopedia relating to in-game assets, as the developers focus on building the game. 

The team has made a strong effort to engage with the community through lore and content, particularly on the Illuvium Medium Page, as well as its Discord community. The Illuvium Discord page boasts over 95,000 members at the time of writing. 

What is the hype all about?

In March 2021, Illuvium announced a USD5 million investment led by Framework Ventures, which focuses on investments in the DeFi space. The team is also backed by Delphi Digital, LD Capital, Lotus Capital, and Blocksync Ventures.

Furthermore, Illuvium has already inked a partnership with Yield Guild Games (YGG), and is further backed by prominent personalities such as Jason Choi (Spartan Group), Kain Warwich (Synthetix), Stani Kulechhov (Aave), Anton Bukov (1inch), and Satiago Roel Santos (ParaFi).

The blue-chip and marquee backing of Illuvium has certainly generated significant interest in the long-term potential of the game.

The recent price surge of the ILV token has also coincided with a general wave of interest in NFT games and their native tokens over the past few months, with tokens such as AXS and SAND both enjoying strong price run-ups.

The core focus of investors who have purchased the token seems to be centered on the game’s differentiated immersive experience, which would bridge the current gap in NFT games for more hardcore gamers.

It will be exciting to watch Illuvium’s growth over the next 2 quarters, and whether the game will ultimately live up to its promise of being a AAA-rated game.

For now, Illuvium continues to be one of the most talked about NFT gaming projects which has managed to sustain strong momentum over the course of the past months.

Featured Image Credit: Venture Beat

Also Read: Star Atlas: Solana’s NFT Game Project Is Setting The Pace For The Next Generation Of Gaming