Although the battle royale hype has dwindled, there’s still a huge player base of fans for the genre waiting for the next big battle royale game. Now with Play-to-earn games gaining more exposure to people unfamiliar with crypto, Kiraverse is trying to step up and offer this experience to those who are trying to find an NFT game and let other NFTs come to life inside of their battle royale metaverse. Can it stand toe-to-toe with the already well-established giants in the battle royale genre?

Background

Kiraverse is a third-person shooter built on the ImmutableX chain. With partnerships with GameStop and ImmutableX in tow, and a team that has experience working with companies like Samsung, Atari, Adobe, and Epic Games to name a few. The game lets its players use their own NFTs from other collections like Bored Apes Yacht Club and use them as playable avatars in the game.

Graphics and Gameplay

I see a lot of similarities with other familiar battle royale titles, not just in the gameplay but in the graphics as well. A tad bit much if I’m honest. The default characters are eerily similar to Fortnite as they look the same in body proportions as the Epic Games classic but with more rigid movement animations here. While the map may be familiar to long-time players of Apex Legends, it’s identical down to the loot crates that players can open and get their weapons from.

Although it may appear like a knock-off, it’s not all bad if you think that this can help other players make sense of a new map faster. Although I have to point out that some NFTs when imported tend to look bigger or smaller which may affect the hitboxes which are very crucial for games of this type.

Gameplaywise, it’s what you expect from a battle royale game and if you played Fortnite or Player’s Unknown Battlegrounds (PUBG), you may adjust to Kiraverse easier as they both are third-person shooters. What makes Kiraverse different is the implementation of the play-to-earn mechanic and the different extensions you can play the game in.

There are two main game modes available: A battle royale where you can queue solo, duo, trio, or as a squad of 4. Then an Elimination mode which is similar to a Deathmatch in most shooters where you can fight 1-on-1 with another player or a 10–vs-10 all-out brawl. These game modes can be played in the three extensions which are:

Free Extension - A casual battle royale game for fun.

Wager Extension - A more competitive mode where you can win prizes like other crypto tokens like Ethereum and USDT.

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Earn per Kill Extension **- An endless battle mode where you get more rewards as you kill more players.

You can use Kiraverse’s alien-like human NFTs called KIRAs as your avatar inside the game, but it also has a Free-to-play option if you don’t own any of the avatars. Do note that this will limit your weapon, skins, and upgrades as well as your earning power.

Earning Mechanics

Kiraverse uses the aptly named $KIRA as its in-game token which can be used to purchase NFTs in the game’s marketplace. Players can earn KIRA Tokens in Free play or the more competitive modes in the game. Users can also purchase KIRA directly as they will enable major debit/credit cards to be used inside the game.

Final Thoughts

Bringing your NFTs, especially the image-only ones to life as playable characters inside a game is a really good idea to me and that’s what I really like about Kiraverse. They do not limit players with their own NFTs (even making the game F2P) and this increases the number of players who can hop into the game but gameplay-wise, in my opinion, it’s mediocre at best.

Importing your NFTs inside the game makes the otherwise serious atmosphere of the game wacky and not cohesive. Not to mention the scale of your NFTs are different too and we have yet to find out if this affects the hitboxes of the avatars in-game because if that is the case, I think it will provide an unfair advantage for players who have tiny avatars which can be difficult to spot and harder to hit than the free models available. Not to mention, the game doesn’t have its whitepaper up on its website despite nearing its public release in Q4 of 2022.

Overall, I think the idea for Kiraverse is commendable but without proper implementation, the competitive nature of the game will not be enjoyable as people can abuse this if they want to earn more thus making the game not enjoyable for many. Although I don’t see myself buying into the game, I can see at least giving this fast-paced action battle royale game a try as free-to-play.