AFTER a bumper year for cryptocurrencies in 2021, Bitcoin, Ethereum, and many other top coins have had a rough start to 2022.

But you wouldn’t know it by looking at the NFT market.

NFT collectibles have been soaring in value with OpenSea generating nearly $3 billion in revenue in January 2022 so far – on track to surpass the $3.4 billion high in August 2021.

And with the recent pivot towards NFT utility in play-to-earn gaming, blockchain-based gaming could take 2022 by storm.

Axie Infinity started a gaming craze that has continued into 2022.

But what metaverse games could make waves in 2022?

Illuvium

Illuvium is a highly anticipated fantasy role-playing game developed on the Ethereum blockchain by a decentralised autonomous organisation (DAO) called the Illuvium DAO.

The game was first announced in January 2021 and was described as “a decentralized, NFT collection and auto battler game built on the Ethereum network.”

The game is expected to be released sometime in Q1 2022.

Illuvium starts with a spaceship crashing into an alien world with extreme weather events and strange beasts.

Players then take on the role of a hunter who must explore, capture beasts called Illuvials and begin to uncover more of the map.

There are over 100 Illuvials to find around the open world.

The Illuvials that players collect are represented with NFTs on Ethereum’s blockchain with real-world value.

Players use the Illuvials they have gathered to battle other players to win Ether (ETH).

Illuvium has two cryptocurrencies called ILV and sILV that power the game.

The ILV token allows holders to partake in yield farming, staking and governance of the Illuvium DAO.

Those who stake their tokens can receive rewards in either ILV or sILV.

If holders receive ILV, the rewards can’t be accessed for one year.

Holders who choose to earn sILV will receive rewards immediately with no lock-up period, but they can only be used on in-game purchases.

Several revenue streams, including in-game purchases, are used to fund rewards for those staking ILV.

ILV token reached an all-time high of $2,869 on May 29, 2021, but has since fallen back by just over 70 per cent to $786.50.

However, this is up 2,556 per cent since June 2021.

DeFi Kingdoms

Defi Kingdoms (DFK) is a play-to-earn game build on the Harmony blockchain with a decentralised exchange (DEX), a liquidity pool (LP) in the form of in-game banks and gardens and NFTs.

DFK is still in development, but, there are fully functional features that gamers can partake in with the ONE and JEWEL tokens.

ONE is required for gas fees during in-game transactions while JEWEL is the native token used to buy items and unique NFTs such as Heroes and Kingdoms, as well as other in-game items.

Hero NFTs will be the central part of the gameplay.

Gamers don’t need a Hero to participate in the Marketplace, Bank, or Garden but they are needed to participate in quests, engage in professions, and fight other players.

Each Hero has stats, a rarity, a class and subclass, a profession, a gender and more.

Heroes can be purchased in the Tavern and summoned at the Portal.

Each Hero will require a specific amount of JEWELs and Tears – which are in-game crystals – to be summoned.

JEWEL is also used for liquidity mining where users can earn money through staking.

It’s also a governance token meaning holders have a say in the future of the project.

In the past three months, the token price has surged by 1,229 per cent from $1.23 on October 20, 2021, to an all-time high of $22.52 on January 5, 2022.

It’s also seen a 90 per cent increase in the last 30 days alone.

The Galaxy Fight Club

The Galaxy Fight Club (GFC) is a real-time player versus player game that brings together all NFT collections onto one single platform.

This means you can ‘log-in’ with an NFT you have already bought such as a CryptoPunk or Bored Ape and battle with that character.

In the fictional metaverse there are different planets known for different experiences.

Players hop between each planet with their avatars.

Galaxy Fight Club said they want to become the “go-to platform for PvP experiences.

“A player might go to The Sandbox when they want to relax and build but come to Galaxy Fight Club for fighting and combat.”

The Galaxy Fight Club is expected to launch on the Polygon blockchain but is currently in beta testing and it’s not clear when public access will be made available.

Many are hopeful for a Q1 2022 rollout.

Each Galaxy Fighter generates anywhere between 5 to 15 GCOIN daily.

If a fighter is sold, the new owner will inherit the accrued GCOIN.

GCOIN is needed to power players in-game moves, forging weapons, opening loot boxes and training and selling second-generation fighters.

An IDO (an IDO is a platform for crowdfunding for any new project launched on a decentralised exchange platform using coins or tokens) for GCOIN happened on PolkaStarter on January, 6, 2021, and released 4 million tokens for sale at $0.50 each with a maximum allocation of $500 per wallet.

According to The Galaxy Fight Club: “The first $1.5 million was purchased and sold out in roughly 15 minutes, at which point the remaining $500K reserved only for the Battle Pass holders took another hour to be filled.”

GCOIN is up 222 per cent since it launched currently trading at $1.61.

Guild of Guardians

Guild of Guardians is one of the more anticipated blockchain games in 2022 and is built on ImmutableX.

Guild of Guardians in-game assets can be exchanged, similar to popular games like Axie Infinity.

The game launched its in-game token – GOG – in October 2021.

GOG tokens are what power minting of NFTs, making in-game purchases at the marketplace and can be earnt while playing.

The Guild of Guardians (GOG) token reached an all-time high of $2.81 on December 22, 2021, but has since retreated back by just over 50 per cent to $1.25.

Axie Infinity

Axie Infinity has an established and highly developed ecosystem as well as a strong economic model.

As the top traded NFT collection of all time, Axie Infinity comes ahead of CryptoPunks, Bored Ape Yacht Club and Art Blocks.

Axie Infinity has seen 614,095 traders spent over $550 million in the last 30 days alone.

Axies are the NFT used for gameplay and can be bred using SLP, the in-game utility token, and AXS, the governance token.

AXS can be staked (with over $1.56 billion currently staked) and users are continuing to reap huge yield (APY) despite it being reduced from over 200 per cent at the start to roughly 88 per cent now.

One of the largest digital land sales to date also happened on Axie Infinity where one of the 75 genesis land plots sold for $2.3 million.

Since November 2020, Axie Infinity’s governance token AXS has surged in value by 61,492 per cent and is currently trading at around $76.