Blockchain technology's implementation in gaming has exploded in recent years. However, we’ve yet to see a game that has the budget and polish of a blockbuster release. Illuvium promises to bring a higher-class blockchain game experience that explores the metaverse and play-to-earn models. But what is Illuvium crypto and how to play Illuvium?
What is Illuvium Crypto?
Illuvium is an open-world RPG blockchain game built on ETHereum that will be released in 2022. Players travel across a fantasy world, defeating and catching creatures known as Illuvials. After adding them to your collection, you can use your monsters in battles against other players while you're questing, completing challenges, or playing through Illuvium’s story.
Illuvium also has its own tokens, ILV and sILV, and Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) that represent creatures, cosmetic upgrades, and functional items. The game will have play-to-earn features, rewarding gamers with ILV tokens for completing challenges, quests, and battles.
How to Play Illuvium?
As of writing, Illuvium is still in development with a prospective release date of 2022. The game client will be available to download as a desktop application after creating an account. There will be both a free-to-play mode and premium subscriptions.
The core mechanic of the Illuvium project is collecting and customizing your NFT Illuvials. Each Illuvial in-game has an associated affinity and class. More powerful Illuvials can even combine classes and affinities.
Using Illuvials of the same affinities and classes provides bonuses when played togETHer in battles. This is known as creating synergies and provides a tactical choice in the Illuvials you use and collect. Users can also merge their Illuvials to create new ones with improved power once they reach a certain level.
To catch an Illuvial, you'll need to contain it in a shard. The more powerful the Illuvial is, the more powerful the shard must be to catch it successfully. If your Illuvial is injured, it will begin to restore its health over time in its shard. However, if you want to quicken the process, you can pay a fee or use items to speed up the health regeneration. Some Illuvials are rarer than others and are displayed as Shiny, Gold, or Holographic.
Illuvium Classes
Illuvium contains five different classes: Fighter, Guardian, Empath, Rogue, and Psion. The exact details of their differences are yet to be released. When creating a team, class and affinity synergies should be taken into account, especially when creating "Ascended" hybrid classes. For example, a Slayer comes from merging a Fighter Illuvial with a Rogue Illuvial. You can also combine two of the same class to make an Illuvial that has particularly strong skills of that class.
Illuvium Affinities
Illuvium has five affinities: Air, Nature, Fire, Water, and Earth. Each Illuvial deals and takes damage based on their affinity type. For example, a Water Illuvial will deal extra damage against a Fire Illuvial but will be weak to Earth. You can combine a mix of the five affinities in Ascended Illuvials to create an affinity combination, such as Dust (Air and Earth) or Frost (Air and Water).
Other Illuvium Attributes
Apart from class and affinity, each Illuvial has other attributes that determine its strength, health, speed, and damage. The more fights your Illuvials win, the more powerful they become. You can also improve certain Illuvial traits with in-game items that can be found, purchased, or made with crafting components.
What is Illuvium (ILV) Token?
Illuvium (ILV) is an ERC-20 token on the ETHereum blockchain with various use cases within the game and ecosystem. The ILV price is determined through a mix of speculation of the game's success and its utility in staking. The token comes in two different forms, ILV, and sILV.
ILV rewards are vested for a year, but sILV can be used immediately in the game. There will only ever be a combined total supply total of 7 million ILV and sILV. 3 million will be distributed as staking rewards giving a 10 million maximum supply. As many users stake their coins already, the circulating supply will be lower. There are three primary uses for ILV:
1. Players are rewarded with ILV coins for their successes and achievements when playing the game.
2. Holders can stake ILV in the Illuvium Vault. Stakers receive rewards in ILV or sILV.
3. Holders can participate in the game's governance via the Illuvium Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO). The Illuvinati Council allows for community collaboration in creating game improvement proposals and other changes to the governance model.
As an ERC-20 token, users moving ILV and sILV will have to pay ETHereum gas fees. As these can sometimes be expensive, we've yet to see how they will successfully implement ERC-20 transactions into the game and still make it affordable. You can find Illuvium's latest market price and all-time high on Binance and Coinmarketcap.
Closing Thoughts
Illuvium has already generated a lot of buzz, traction, and trading volume with the release of its ILV cryptocurrency and Decentralized Finance (DeFi) staking platform. It is evident in the obvious increase in the number of “how to play Illuvium” Google searches. The Illuvium price has also shown healthy growth since its release.
While the gameplay mechanics are similar to other blockchain games like Axie Infinity, the look, feel, and functionality of Illuvium seem to be of a higher quality. Will it end up being one of the first big-budget AAA experiences in the NFT gaming world? We'll have to wait and find out during its beta phase sometime in late 2022 or early 2023.
