Illuvium is one of the most complex blockchain games in development, consisting of its own ecosystem of connected games, all of which are able to use the coveted “AAA” tag unabashedly. Overworld is one of the prettiest and most alluring of the games under the Illuvium umbrella and today, the Private Beta 2 begins, showcasing new features and Illuvials.
At the close of 2022, we got our first peak at Overworld gameplay in the first beta client. In this open-world RPG, you explore, hunt Illuvials (pets you use for battling), harvest resources, and more. What attracted me most to the project was how each game is discrete in genre, but they are all neatly woven together; to succeed in the Arena, you need to put the time in Overworld, and so on.
Then, several months ago, Illuvium: Beyond was introduced which added a new NFT collection metagame. It is, on the face of it, an NFT PFP project, but thankfully, before I turned around and left, I read how it works — it is well thought through.
In short, Illuvium is a project worth your time and its future is looking enticing. It is well-backed (not least by the land sale which hauled $72m of Ethereum at the time!) and as a result, it appears to be ramping up rather than slowing.
What’s New in Illuvium: Overworld Beta 2?
The second private beta of Overworld comes with several updates that will entice players back in, even if they had run rampant in the first beta until exhaustion. The beta starts 18th May 2023 and if you haven’t signed up yet, you can do it here.
The Overworld Beta 2 update will introduce various innovative features, including Morphopods, the Overload mechanic, new movement mechanics like Slide and Glide, and new environment mechanics like Lilypad and Bubble. Players can also look forward to exploring new playable Overworld regions and battle maps, including Abyssal Basin and Brightland Steppes.
— Illuvium
One of the two new zones looks like an Unreal Engine 5 rebuild of World of Warcraft’s Zangar Marsh, and I mean that in the most positive way imaginable. The environments look superb in general and they’re yet to miss on the visual front.
This beta will also allow more participants than last time — over double — increasing from 30,000 to 75,000 keys sent to players. That said, there were over two million sign-ups!
One final piece of news that runs parallel to the beta announcement feels as if it warrants a press release of its own. In light of Axie Infinity being accepted to the Apple store (a tremendously up-hill battle as we found out with our blockchain gaming app), Illuvium is looking to release Illuvium: Zero later this year, an iOS game in the ecosystem.
