When I first started in the crypto gaming space, I browsed through the list of titles and most of the projects I saw were pixelated or maybe even low-effort. That recently changed when I saw this game called Illuvium. I’ve been in shock at how good this game looks graphically and as time progresses, I’m afraid it’s only getting better.

**Illuvium is a mixture of a lot of things. It’s a strategy, card collecting, auto-battler game where players collect monsters called Illuvials who they can then deploy on a chess board-like battlefield to fight Illuvials and other players. The gameplay is very reminiscent of Teamfight Tactics or Dota’s Underlords where you assemble a team from a pool of cards and create the best team for the fight by using the abilities and synergies of the traits and classes that the characters you field onto the battlefield possess. The difference is in Illuvium, you catch the monsters you are going to fight with in an open world, similar to Pokemon.

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Illuvials can be caught by exploring the world on the game’s adventure mode with the use of objects called shards. Each Illuvial possesses different strengths and rarities. The stronger they are, the harder they will be to capture. That's why using a higher tier shard to contain these stronger Illuvials is necessary (like using a great ball or master ball in Pokemon) if you want to strengthen the team you have.

The game will be launching with over 100 Illuvials and based on the live streams done by the team, I think they all look well-designed and possess enough variety to make the game interesting as well as intricate. The use of the mastery points to deploy the Illuvials is also an added layer of intricacy in creating working teams. It unlocks a lot of strategies for players and with further balancing, I believe the game will be sustainable for a very long time.

Most people may have heard of Illuvium because of its graphics. Almost looking like (if not) a AAA game title with the quality of graphics and design it has. The maps all look varied and detailed with an immersive atmosphere that gives players the feeling that an Illuvial may be hiding anywhere.

Players can also zoom in onto the board where they place the creatures for battle to see the characters fighting closer and on first look, I think the animations are great and the sound goes so well together. The User interface is well-spaced and doesn’t look too cluttered. Players can easily see what they can press and they are even offered previews of what happens to the team synergies and effects if they hover over a card which I think is a really awesome way to help players decide quickly since preparation phases in these types of games tend to be short.

I do have some concerns about the game due to its graphical fidelity. How optimized will it be and will it require powerful hardware to run?  I also have to question the price of entry in the game since it uses Ethereum although it is built on Immutable X, a Layer-2 Ethereum network, the prices on the NFTs used in the game are higher compared to other projects (It has lower gas fees though). The beta done earlier in April also showed some bugs and glitches which will hopefully be resolved but there is no sign of when the public release of the game will come out. Still supposedly slated for Q2 of 2022 at the time of this writing. 

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Overall, I’m nothing but excited for the public release of the game since I first took note of it. As a fan of the auto-battler/auto chess genre, I can’t wait to build my own deck and team of Illuvials and find the best synergies I can build in the game. I just hope that the developers don’t fold in if the game becomes successful, halting development for the project without improving it further. I’m seeing a lot of potential in the game itself and I think that it is a good sign that a game is well thought-out and impressively designed. I believe Illuvium can possibly be the first AAA game in the crypto space and I’m excited to play it when the title comes out.