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8 best metaverse games
Best metaverses to game, earn and hang out.
The term metaverse generally describes a virtual world or game that’s built in Web3, which is the latest iteration of the Internet that’s being built on blockchain technology.
All the games making our best list are decentralized. This means they aren’t governed by a single entity, but are instead governed by a group of individuals called a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO).
We’re excluding centralized metaverses from this list such as Second Life and Roblox, since they lack cryptocurrency and DAO.
8 best metaverse games
We’ve reviewed over 40 metaverse games to narrow down our top picks:
Best overall: Decentraland
Best for creators: The Sandbox
Best for earnings: Axie Infinity
Best for comfy gaming: DeFi Kingdoms
Best for beginners: Arc8
Best battle royale: Thetan Arena
Best trading card game: Splinterlands
Best for collectors: CryptoKitties
Best metaverse games
Our list includes multiple genres including role-playing games (RPGs), trading card games (TCGs), battle royales, sandboxes and more.
Best overall: Decentraland
Decentraland Marketplace
Decentraland is known as the first player-owned metaverse, launched in 2017. It's built on Ethereum and its native currency is MANA. There's a population of around 800,000 registered users total and around 18,000 daily active users, as reported by New World Notes as of 2021.
It's a sandbox game, giving players freedom in how they want to play. There's no virtual reality (VR) support yet, but Decentraland's FAQs states its developers are working on it.
The main way to progress in the game is to get virtual parcels. Players can buy, sell or rent virtual plots, ERC-721 tokens called LAND, and even get a mortgage for one. You can also build play-to-earn games on LAND, such as casinos in legal areas.
Users can also create their own avatar wearables to sell, such as hats, shirts, shoes and more — and royalties on these items are set to come soon. Other ways to earn include holding or staking MANA or working as an employee in a play-to-earn game. The best part is, you don't need an account to visit Decentraland, so it's completely free to try before investing time and money.
| Blockchains | Ethereum |
|---|---|
| Payment methods | Cryptocurrency |
| Services | Buy, Sell, Mint |
Best for creators: The Sandbox
The Sandbox
The Sandbox and Decetraland are often lumped together, but they have different aesthetics. The Sandbox has a pixelated and blocky appearance resulting in a very Minecraft-style look. However, unlike Minecraft, players in The Sandbox can make their own games and wearables and earn cryptocurrency.
To date, it has over two million registered users. The Sandbox uses SAND — over 1.06 billion in circulation at the time of writing — and it's built on the Ethereum blockchain. To play and earn, players must have a crypto wallet, either MetaMask, Bitskit or Venly.
There's 166,464 LAND tokens, the tokens that represent The Sandbox's virtual real estate. Players can build on their owned LAND using Game Maker to make game levels. Creators can make 3D assets using VoxEdit such as animals, avatars, animations and more to be sold on the marketplace, and earn royalties on secondary sales.
| Blockchains | Ethereum |
|---|---|
| Payment methods | Credit card, Debit card, Cryptocurrency |
| Services | Buy, Sell, Mint |
Best for earnings: Axie Infinity
Axie Infinity
Launched in 2018, Axie Infinity remains one of the most popular play-to-earn metaverse games, being the first game to hit $4 billion sales, as reported by Business Insider. Players earn the in-game currency Smooth Love Potion (SLP) from winning battles, and it's also used to breed new in-game characters called Axies, which are unique NFTs.
Axies are axolotl-type characters, seemingly inspired by monster battling games like Pokémon. They have different stats, abilities and six body parts associated with each class. There are also power-ups and trading cards that boost abilities in battles. Players need to have at least three Axies to battle.
It's a turn-based battler with three game modes: Adventure Mode, Arena and Daily Quests. By completing challenges and winning battles, players earn SLP. Users can either trade their SLP for other crypto, or use SLP to breed new Axies to sell or battle with.
In addition, there are Axie Infinity guilds where users can rent out their Axies and split profits. Axie Infinity also has a metaverse homeland, called Lunacia, where players can purchase virtual parcels and earn rewards.
| Blockchains | Ethereum |
|---|---|
| Payment methods | Cryptocurrency |
Best for comfy gaming: DeFi Kingdoms
DeFi Kingdoms
If you prefer a more passive game, then DeFi Kingdoms could be for you. It's largely a farming simulator and medieval RPG, with a charming pixelated style. Built on Harmony, it uses the in-game currency JEWEL.
Players have multiple ways to earn and play including staking, buying and selling heroes or sending heroes on quests to earn rewards. There are cute and wacky nonplayer characters (NPCs) to chat with, including the barkeep, town crier, arch druid, stylist and trader.
The NFT heroes in the game have multiple stats with different uses and advantages, which are key in choosing what quests to play for earning in-game rewards. Players can also stake JEWEL in the Garden, locking them and earning rewards over time.
Players can also breed heroes with the Portal, which involves 'summoning' heroes using two heroes and a catalyst that can either be used for quests or be sold at the market. Eventually, there will be NFT pets, NFT equipment, player vs. player (PvP) and player vs. environment (PvE) modes and guilds.
| Blockchains | Harmony Protocol |
|---|---|
| Payment methods | Cryptocurrency |
Best for beginners: Arc8
Arc8
If you're unfamiliar with cryptocurrency or Web3, Arc8 is a great way to enter the world of blockchain gaming. Arc8 is a mobile gaming platform launched by GAMEE in 2021. The platform contains 11 play-to-earn games, including Solitaire Star, Samurai Hold'em, Asteroids and other familiar game modes.
All but one of the 11 games are available to play immediately, with Sky Lords requiring an NFT called a G-Bot, which you can get by using a pack released by GAMEE or going to OpenSea for secondary sales.
To play Arc8, download the mobile app. It's free to sign up, and you can play without creating an account or connecting a wallet. There are two modes: practice and tournament.
Practice modes involve pitting you against one other player, with winners getting 'credits' (not a true cryptocurrency). Once you've honed your skills in practice mode, you can move onto tournaments and earn GMEE by winning — the actual currency.
| Blockchains | Polygon |
|---|---|
| Payment methods | Cryptocurrency |
Best battle royale: Thetan Arena
Thetan Arena
Prefer skill-based gaming? Thetan Arena calls itself a multiplayer online battle arena, or MOBA, metaverse. It's largely a battle royale game, sharing characteristics with games like League of Legends or other point-and-click, top-down multiplayer games.
The game characters you use to play are NFTs with three rarity levels: Common, Epic or Legendary. Each character comes with three skin rarity levels, which influence battle rewards: Normal, Rare and Mythical. There are three classes: Tank, Assassin and Marksman.
To play, you need a MetaMask wallet and the in-game currency is Thetan Coin (THC), which can be traded or used to buy Thetan Boxes (loot boxes). At sign up, you're gifted the free hero Raidon so you can start playing without any investment.
There are five game modes: Battle Royale, Superstar, Deathmatch, Tower Siege and Custom. You can team up with friends or risk it solo. Winning matches will earn you rewards.
The NFT heroes can also be bought and sold on the marketplace.
| Blockchains | Binance Smart Chain |
|---|
Best trading card game (TCG): Splinterlands
Splinterlands
Built on the Hive blockchain, Splinterlands is a battling TCG, playable on browser and mobile devices. It's a top blockchain game and has been for a while.
Splinterlands is an autobattler, and that could be a pro or a con depending on your playstyle. An autobattler is a game where a match plays out automatically after you build a deck for the match. Cards vary in value, abilities and stats and there are millions of cards in circulation.
Players collect cards that are used to battle other players and unlock earnings. Start playing for free, but you must buy a $10 Summoner's Book to unlock earning opportunities. The Summoner's Book opens daily quests, season rewards and the ability to earn Dark Energy Crystals (DEC), the game's native cryptocurrency.
Collectors can amass valuable cards and sell them on the marketplace as well. There are seasonal rewards for completing daily quests, too. You can also burn cards to earn DEC.
| Blockchains | Hive |
|---|---|
| Payment methods | Cryptocurrency, PayPal |
| Services | Buy, Sell, Stake |
Best for collectors: CryptoKitties
CryptoKitties
CryptoKitties is a trailblazer in blockchain gaming — the CryptoPunks of crypto games. It's one of the first blockchain games, launched in 2017. Built on Ethereum, CryptoKitties is a collecting, trading and breeding game.
The cat NFTs are ERC-721 tokens. Users need ether (ETH) and a crypto wallet to play. CryptoKitties can be brought into the metaverse with Decentraland's Picture Frames feature. Additionally, CryptoKitties creators have their own blockchain — Flow — that's set as the foundation for new NFT projects.
There are three main ways to play CryptoKitties: Breeding, trading or fancy chasing. Players take a female cat and male cat to create new cats, and the attributes of the new cat come from the parents. You can use two of your own cats to breed, or rent someone else's cat.
Trading cats on the market — either ones you bought or ones you bred — may also yield a profit. A fancy chaser is someone that seeks limited edition cats with the title 'fancy,' and they're highly valuable.
| Blockchains | Ethereum |
|---|---|
| Payment methods | Cryptocurrency |
How we chose the best metaverse games
While metaverses don’t have to be decentralized, we left out centralized games to keep our metaverse list crypto-specific. We considered the following factors while composing our list of best metaverse games:
- User count
- Accessibility
- Token value
- Playability
- Sign up ease
- Earning opportunities
- Investment to enter
- Popularity
- Marketplace functionality
We also considered whether the games have supportive communities on platforms such as Reddit, Discord and Twitter, and general reception and reputation of these various metaverse games. And, of course, whether or not these games have the fun factor.
What you need to play metaverse games
For nearly every decentralized application (dApp), you need a crypto wallet, some cryptocurrency and either a browser or mobile app. Some popular crypto wallets include:
- Coinbase Wallet
- Exodus
- Ledger (software and hardware options)
- MetaMask
- WalletConnect
- Zengo
As a general rule, most metaverses are playable on a browser. There are some exceptions — such as the mobile platform Arc8 — and a few metaverses have mobile apps, but count on needing a reliable computer and browser.
For a more immersive experience, you could invest in a virtual reality (VR) headset, but it’s almost always optional — and many metaverse games don’t yet support VR. If that’s something you’re interested in, Oculus is typically the go-to headset for metaverse games, as it’s widely supported.
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How do I compare metaverse games?
Comparing metaverses should start with your own preferences. An open-world, sandbox game may not be your cup of tea — or collecting games like CryptoKitties may come off as boring. We recommend honing in what genre of games you find fun and exciting, then funneling down from there.
Some things to consider before settling down into a metaverse game include:
- Are the earning opportunities obtainable?
- How many play-to-earn tactics does the metaverse have?
- If the metaverse has creation tools, are there royalties on secondary sales?
- Is a considerable investment required and how soon can you earn it back?
- How long has the metaverse been open to the public?
- Has the metaverse been hacked, and how does it protect its users?
There are multiple metaverse and crypto games out there, with plenty still in development. For more metaverse blockchain game reviews, check out our play-to-earn crypto games list.
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