Have you ever played MMORPG games like the Elder Scrolls Online, Runescape, and World of Warcraft? Remember the experience of going on to quests, collecting all kinds of items that you sell to the friendly, monotonous NPC? Imagine if you can earn real money while playing a game like that, actually owning all the cool stuff and characters you acquire in the game? You don’t have to wait for long because that is exactly what the game Mirandus is all about.

Mirandus is an open-world MMORPG game made by Gala Games, The same company that made TownStars and Spider Tanks. Built on the Ethereum blockchain but also supports Binance Smart Chain. It seeks to incorporate blockchain technology into the game to help bring true ownership of in-game items to the players. In Mirandus, players can do anything they want in the open world. Exploring the eerie forests and finding relics, they can become landlords, lend their land for farmers to cultivate crops on, and even sail the high seas and become seafarers. The extent of how you play the game is wide and it is expected only to grow more as the game gets closer and closer to its release date since the game is still in development.

With each of the updates that the Mirandus team posts on their social media accounts, the interest in the game only grows stronger and stronger. The world-building and design of the game look clean and immersive. I don’t mind the geometric aesthetic that the developers are going for, although some may find it odd or wasteful for such a well-designed world, I think it has its own appeal especially when everything is put together. Proof of the hype on this game is that most of the items you can buy in the game are sold out already like the land deeds and the buildings in the game that players are allowed to buy and rent to other players.

You can also buy special NFT characters in the game called Exemplars. These Exemplars have different skills to help you out in the game like the teased elf character that can see clearly at night (the night in the game looks almost pitch black so this skill is really useful)  although they are not necessary to start playing since the game is planned to be released as a free-to-play game. There are also other items such as lanterns and ships that people can use for traveling the map of Mirandus.

I personally think that the development of the game is quite slow. The game was announced on October 6, 2021, followed by the first sale of their VOX boxes later in December that year. Also, the current videos posted on their social media shows that they are still working on the shooting mechanics in the game (with a bow and arrow) and it does not look as smooth making it look like the arrows just go from point a then appear on point b where it is targeted at. The environment looks good already though and the sound design is getting there. You can hear the grass and trees swaying with the air and the crackling of the flames in the campfire is satisfying.

Overall, I think Mirandus is a great game to follow. The potential of letting the players own a majority of the assets in the game and control their economy is close to what most people in the DeFi world are looking for and I will be watching how things will roll out from there. I think the game is an ambitious attempt to make players feel empowered by having them involved in the economy of the game and having true ownership of the items and rewards they have played for. If everything goes well, I think Mirandus will be a precedent for other games attempting to implement a player-controlled economy in their games. The world of Mirandus is filled with excitement and possibilities and I can’t wait to be a part of it.