This Week in Crypto Games: 'Eve Frontier' on Ethereum, 'Hamster Kombat' and 'Catizen' Binance Rewards

The crypto and NFT gaming space is busier than ever lately, what with prominent games starting to release, token airdrops piling up, and a seemingly constant array of other things happening at all times. It’s a lot to take in!

Luckily, Decrypt’s GG is all over it. And if you need a quick way to get caught up on the latest moves around crypto video games, we’re happy to present This Week in Crypto Games.

Our weekend roundup serves up the biggest news from the past week, along with a few other tidbits you might have missed. We also showcase a few of our original stories from the week.

Biggest news

Eve Frontier on Ethereum: The creator of Eve Online, CCP Games, announced on Thursday that its upcoming survival blockchain game previously referred to as Project Awakening will be rebranded to Eve Frontier—and it will be built within the Ethereum ecosystem.

The on-chain space simulator will feature multiple crypto tokens which will be issued with Ethereum’s ERC-20 token standard. And it is being developed on Redstone, an Ethereum layer-2 network built with Optimism tech that is primed for on-chain, autonomous game worlds. The game's next closed beta test kicks off later this month.

‘Eve Frontier’ Survival Game Is Being Built on Ethereum, CCP Reveals

Eve Online creator CCP Games announced Thursday that its upcoming survival-centric blockchain game, previously referred to as Project Awakening, will launch as Eve Frontier instead—and that it’s being built within the Ethereum ecosystem. Eve Frontier, as it has been rebranded, is an on-chain space simulation game that players will be able to mold and expand as they see fit—and they must collaborate or face certain doom, CCP Games founder and CEO Hilmar Veigar Pétursson told Decrypt’s GG earlier...

Hamster Kombat + Catizen Binance giveaways: Viral Telegram tap-to-earn game Hamster Kombat confirmed on Thursday that its token’s total supply will be 100 billion. Alongside this announcement, it was revealed that billions of tokens will be dropped to customers of crypto exchange Binance for participating in a Launchpool rewards campaign.

Customers in legally permitted countries (sorry U.S. folks, you’re excluded) will be able to stake Binance Coin (BNB) and the FDUSD stablecoin in the weeklong rewards campaign to earn a share of HMSTR tokens. The campaign will run from September 19 until September 26—the launch date for the token on The Open Network (TON).

‘Hamster Kombat’ Will Give Out Billions of Tokens via Binance in Telegram Game Airdrop

Popular Telegram tap-to-earn game Hamster Kombat is set to launch its HMSTR token on The Open Network (TON) later this month alongside an airdrop to its many millions of players. On Thursday, the developers announced plans to drop billions of tokens to Binance customers, as well, through a Launchpool rewards campaign. The HMSTR token will have a total supply of 100 billion tokens, the anonymous Hamster Kombat team revealed Thursday as part of the announcement—and 3 billion of those tokens have b...

The following day, Telegram game Catizen confirmed similar plans, giving away 90 million tokens (out of a supply of 1 billion CATI) in a Binance Launchpool campaign that will last from September 16-19. Also, on Saturday, Catizen revealed airdrop allocations to players and allowed them to choose if they'd like to send those tokens to a centralized exchange account once the token is generated on September 20.

Telegram Game ‘Catizen’ Set to Reveal Airdrop Allocations as Binance Rewards Launch

Swipe-to-earn Telegram game Catizen is gearing up to reveal to players how many CATI tokens they will receive ahead of its token launch on The Open Network (TON) and airdrop, with developers also announcing a Binance Launchpool rewards campaign ahead of opening up centralized exchange claims to players. Catizen developer Pluto Studio announced Friday that it will take a snapshot of player’s in-game progression at midnight, before revealing token allocations on Saturday morning. On Sunday, player...

Deadrop dev layoffs: Midnight Society, the game studio behind vertical extraction shooter Deadrop, confirmed last week that it had laid off a “significant” portion of its workforce—one employee claimed that 50% of staff were let go, though it's unclear how many people the studio had before the move. This comes just three months after the studio terminated its relationship with Dr. Disrespect, a popular video game streamer and one of the studio’s co-founders. 

Dr. Disrespect (aka Guy Beahm) had returned to streaming the week before with a YouTube video titled “The Truth.” In this stream, he denied allegations that he had inappropriately messaged a minor, claims that directly led to his removal from Midnight Society. This is despite previously admitting that he had had conversations with a minor that “leaned too much in the direction of being inappropriate.”

 NFT Revolution

‘Deadrop’ Game Studio Confirms Layoffs After Booting Dr. Disrespect

Midnight Society, the game studio behind shooter game Deadrop, has confirmed that “significant” layoffs took place after staff started to post about the move on social media. The layoffs come just three months after the company announced that it was “terminating” its relationship with Dr. Disrespect, a popular video game streamer and one of the studio’s co-founders, amid allegations that he inappropriately chatted with a minor. Dr. Disrespect previously confirmed the allegations, but has since b...

ICYMI

• TON developers warned that Hamster Kombat and Catizen token launches may disrupt the network.
• Ethereum mech shooter MetalCore launched in open beta on the Epic Games Store.
• Magic Muffins game launches on Telegram trying to take on Hamster Kombat.
• Solana NFT collection Claynosaurz revealed it is making a mobile game in collaboration with Gameloft.
• The "Doom Olympics" competition kicked off across Ethereum scalers Base and Cartesi.

‘Doom Olympics’ Game Competition Kicks Off on Ethereum

Think you’re good at the classic shooter Doom? On Thursday, a fully on-chain, weeklong competition called the “Doom Olympics” began with a $15,000 prize pool up for grabs. Crypto gaming project RIVES has previously put “every aspect” of retro games like Tetris on the Cartesi blockchain—an Ethereum-based scaling network that uses Linux-powered rollups—as well as Base, the Coinbase-incubated Ethereum layer-2 network. By doing so, every movement, score, and interaction is recorded and verifiable....

• Telegram game Rocky Rabbit launched its battle mode ahead of the RBTC token launch.
• Castile launched in beta on Aptos while developer Nytro Lab announced a fresh funding round.
• X Empire opened pre-market trading via an NFT traded on the Getgems marketplace, ahead of the airdrop.
• Decentralized exchange PancakeSwap launched a BNB price prediction Telegram bot.
• CARV launched a $50 million accelerator, with the first project being rising Telegram game Banana.

• Ethereum gaming network Ronin launched Waypoint, its universal account and wallet.
• Crypto gaming ecosystem Treasure is considering a move from Ethereum scaler Arbitrum to ZKsync.
• Saga, a layer-1 blockchain with a focus on gaming, launched gas-free infrastructure.
• Kugle, a virtual pet game built on Solana's Neon EVM, launched last week.
• Super Champs, an anime-inspired gaming universe, announced the launch of its layer-3 network on Base.

GG spotlight

Here are a few of our original stories from this past week that we think are well worth a weekend read:

What Is ‘NFL Rivals’? The iOS and Android Football Game With NFTs on Polkadot

When it comes to American football games, the Madden franchise has long been the cream of the crop. But now it has some competition—not just from EA Sports’ own College Football game, but also in the form of mobile game NFL Rivals, which incorporates NFTs.  While NFL Rivals isn't trying to top Madden when it comes to presenting a lifelike simulation on your game console, it’s a free-to-play, arcade-style mobile football game that has the same official licenses from the league and players, offeri...

‘Hamster Kombat’ Playground Guide: How to Earn Keys to Boost Your HMSTR Airdrop

Hamster Kombat will launch HMSTR on September 26, rewarding players with an on-chain token on The Open Network (TON) after they’ve spent months racking up coins in the Telegram crypto game. But the airdrop for each player will be based on more than just coin earnings. Another factor that will play into allocations, according to the Airdrop menu in the game, is how many keys you’ve earned from playing the mini-game puzzle—as well as the growing selection of partner games in the Playground. Each g...

‘NFL Rivals’ Tips Guide: How to Dominate in the Mobile NFT Game

The new in-game season of NFL Rivals is here alongside the NFL kickoff, and with it has come a wave of new and returning players hoping to play some mobile gridiron—and maybe earn a few valuable NFTs in the process. As a mobile game, NFL Rivals delivers bursts of arcade-style fun on iOS and Android. It’s a good way to keep yourself entertained during the TV timeouts on Sundays, assuming you aren’t looking for a full Madden-like simulation. But as with any game, especially those where there’s the...

PS5 Pro Preview: Everything You Need to Know About the Next Sony PlayStation

Sony’s PlayStation 5 outsold Microsoft’s Xbox Series X and S last year, shipping a whopping three PS5s for every Xbox. But the tech giant hasn’t put its feet up for the rest of the generation, and now it’s official: an upgraded PlayStation 5 Pro is coming soon. After months of leaks and rumors, the company announced a Pro model of the PS5 during a technical presentation on September 10. The PlayStation 4 also got an enhanced mid-generation upgrade, and likewise, the PS5 Pro promises loads of per...

Edited by Andrew Hayward