Join the fight for ETH Welcome to the world of Illuvium Illuvium is an open-world RPG, monster collector and autobattler game built on the Ethereum Blockchain.
A decentralised studio building the world’s first Interoperable Blockchain Game (IBG) universe including an open-world exploration game, industrial city builder, and autobattler, all on the Ethereum blockchain.
Join a graphically-rich sci-fi adventure, explore 7 dazzling alien landscapes and conquer the wilderness to uncover the cataclysmic events that shattered Illuvium and help your crash-landed crew flourish!
Illuvium is an open-world RPG, monster collector and autobattler game built on the Ethereumx Blockchain, releasing on PC and Mac in 2022. Play-to-earn in a graphically-rich sci-fi adventure and conquer the wilderness to help your crash-landed crew flourish.
Explore crystal labyrinths, toxic deserts, and windswept mountain summits across detailed alien landscapes. Quest to find the cause of the cataclysm that shattered Illuvium. Hunt and capture Illuvials, deity-like creatures who rule the land. Train and fuse your Illuvials into powerful evolutions to build up their power and value. Draft your ultimate Illuvial starting lineup to take into battles and tournaments in PvE and PvP Arenas, and increase your opportunities to earn. As you discover the capabilities of the Illuvials you collect, outsmart your opponents by harnessing unique synergies. Hit a winning streak as you best others to become the strongest Ranger on Illuvium.
A Fully Decentralised RPG and Collection Game Built On The Immutable X L2 Network
Introduction
Welcome to the world of Illuvium. A shattered land of beauty and wonder. Travel the vast and varied landscape hunting dangerous beasts, then capture them to battle in the Arenas or trade via the exchange.
Prior to launch of the game, $ILV holders may choose to stake $ILV to access the liquidity mining program (a type of ‘yield farming’ that has become popular with DeFi protocols where the founding teams seek to decentralise the governance of the protocol).
The purpose of the liquidity mining program is to distribute $ILV from the Illuvium Treasury to early Illuvium community members to: 1) achieve a distributed holding of $ILV tokens across more of the Illuvium community, 2) incentivise new people to participate in the Illuvium community, and 3) to enable a more liquid and transparent market for the trading of $ILV. The greater the size of the Illuvium community, the greater the prospects of decentralised governance as well as a self-regulating community that discourages bad actors and manipulation of governance and the game. Once the game is launched, users can stake $ILV as a signal of belief and support in the game and its governance model and receive access to governance and distributions from in-game fees.
A fully decentralized protocol, Illuvium represents a new age in gaming. It has been engineered from the ground-up to support the long-term sustainability of the Illuvium game and governance and provide players with a AAA-rated blockchain gaming experience. What makes Illuvium unique is that stakers receive regular distributions and can vote on everything from tokenomics related issues to the features in the game itself. With Illuvium, the power to define the project into the future is purposefully left to those who stake in the protocol.
Why DeFi?
The primary goal of the project is to create a fully decentralised game that can run autonomously. Over the last 18 months, and particularly in the last six, DeFi apps have seen impressive growth and rapid development. There are hundreds of DeFi projects gaining traction today—from trading, lending, and wallet interfaces, to assets and communities representing over 15B $USD in value. DeFi allows us to leverage this exciting growth to bootstrap a solvent platform that can hit the ground running for the increasing market interest in DeFi projects.
We are already starting to see a shift away from “novelty projects” that don’t add tangible value because ultimately they are unsustainable. We strongly believe a decentralised gaming economy provides the best fusion between crypto/blockchain/DAO enthusiasts and gamers looking for open access devoid of corporate interference.
There are currently no AAA gaming titles with cinematic quality 3D special effects in an immersive open-world RPG built in DeFi, and Illuvium merges gaming and cryptocurrency in a unique synergy that holds allure for crypto enthusiasts, dedicated gamers, and the curious tech-savvy public. By having gorgeous, functional, and rare NFTs, as well as a high replay value, Illuvium will keep players interested in the $ILV protocol longer, ensuring the stability of the underlying NFT assets and the token pool.
(There are risks associated with DeFi, particularly staking and smart contract risk, and contract configurations are being developed continuously and subject to change and sentiment expressed by the Illuvium community).
Layer 2 Ethereum Scaling Solution – Immutable X
Ownership is vital to collection games. If you don’t own your collection, the entire value proposition falls apart. This is why digital media has struggled in this space and why games with tangible assets, such as card games, have stood the test of time. But with the advent of NFTs and the investigation of their implications, the conventions about ownership, value, and utility of digital property all change.
So what is an NFT?
An NFT, or non-fungible token, is a crypto token representing a verifiably unique entity that is mutually interchangeable. The first NFT-like token was launched back in 2012 and was built on the Bitcoin blockchain. However, the most common NFT, ERC-721, is built on the Ethereum network.
NFTs became popular with the launch of CryptoKitties back in November 2017. Being a blockchain based game built on Ethereum, CryptoKitties was prone to multiple scalability issues. However, the rarity of owning an NFT captured everyone’s attention. Since then, add-ons and NFTs have found their way into many games, art and collectables.
Why did Illuvium choose Immutable X?
One of the primary issues NFT projects and users are currently facing is the cost of performing transactions on the Ethereum network. With limitations on the number of transactions Ethereum can handle, users on the network have bid up gas prices to ensure their transactions quickly settle. With the average cost of transferring an NFT averaging $15 at the time of writing, trading volume for NFTs has plummeted.
Immutable X changes this, allowing users to trade their NFTs without paying gas fees using what is known as a Zero-Knowledge (ZK) Rollup. Aside from just the savings in gas fees, this provides you with a variety of benefits, including:
- You maintain self-custody of your NFTs with the same level of security as mainchain Ethereum, something not seen in alternative scaling solutions like Matic and xDai.
- Transactions are instant, and moving back to mainchain Ethereum is trustless and verifiable.
- Unlike other solutions, there is no need for you to own a unique L2 token to buy, sell, send, or receive NFTs.
- You get more interesting and attractive game mechanics and design from Illuvium thanks to off-chain minting (more on that later).
- Immutable X will provide turing-complete general computation in the near future thanks to Cairo, technology developed by their partners over at StarkWare.
- Immutable engine supports over 9000 transactions per second
Immutable X also focuses on improving NFT liquidity to ensure as a buyer you find what you’re looking for, and as a seller you can find someone who wants your NFT. This is done in a couple of ways:
- They’ve created what is known as a “metadata order”, or the ability for buyers to quickly and easily purchase assets (single, or in bulk) based on an NFTs underlying properties (or “metadata”). This is a major advancement over today’s high-friction trading, where users are often forced to sort through thousands of NFTs that differ ever so slightly to find what they’re looking for at the best available price.
- Immutable X offers pooled liquidity, allowing assets to be listed instantly on every exchange that supports Immutable X.
If you’re not familiar with ZK Rollups, why they’re considered the best solution for scaling on Ethereum, and want to learn more, we’d recommend Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin’s recent guide on Rollups.
Illuvium’s Core Mechanics: Minting, Burning, and Exchange
From the very beginning, the standard paradigm of most NFT games had become uninteresting, and lacking in utility. Buy a digital asset, own it, and hope it appreciates in value. Some games allow you to buy NFTs and then play with them in a game. While certainly an improvement, we still felt there was more to the experience. There had to be a way to establish an emotional connection between the players and their collections. We aren’t the only ones to see the gap, and the subsequent opportunity in this, but we wanted to provide the most distinctive and original solution: an emotive experience that was consistently intriguing and rewarding throughout the entire process, from discovery all the way to exchange.
Inside Illuvium, you will encounter wild, mysterious, and combative creatures called Illuvials. On your journey through the many regions of this broken planet, you hunt, defeat, and capture them. To do this, you need a Shard; a specially-constructed sliver of crystal that traps the quantum signature of the beast inside. The quality of your Shard determines the chance of capture. A successful capture results in a new NFT token representing the Illuvial being minted and stored in your wallet. When you manage to capture a few of the same type, you Fuse them together, which burns the existing tokens and mints a more powerful creature.
Immutable X makes this vital process much easier, by taking away distraction and letting players simply explore and enjoy the world. Players are not bombarded by constant GAS fees for every little change to their collection. And transactions happen much faster, so players can stay focused on what they came here to do: Explore, Collect, Battle, and Earn.
Game Overview
Intro
You take the role of a survivor of a transport vessel in an intergalactic space fleet, investigating a perplexing distress beacon. When you finally reach the origin of the call, you discover a ruined planet, possibly the mythical cradle of your race’s civilization. A vast crystal ocean engulfs all but a tiny fraction of the planet. Extreme weather events assault the surface, giving way to strikingly varied climates. A burst of radiation disables the ship’s engines and you slam into the planet’s surface. Crawling free from the wreckage, you discover majestic beasts, some with near godlike power. Could this be what caused the downfall of this planet? Luckily, your race has begun to master the same energy that the Illuvials harness, and you are able to capture and control the deity-like fauna into slivers of crystal called Shards, mined from the planet’s surface. To uncover the mysteries of the planet, you become a Hunter, traveling across the land subduing and capturing Illuvials, and trying to unlock the Obelisks that keep most of the world closed off.
Note: Game is in development and all details are subject to change.
What are Illuvials?
The planet’s core spills out a strange radiation that the beasts harness to grow, mutate, and unleash deadly attacks. Some Illuvials are easy to find, some are incredibly rare. They are found across a vast landscape. The radiation itself pulses in a non organic way that seems vaguely familiar. There are more than 100 Illuvials to find and collect throughout the world, each possessing unique abilities. They form symbiotic relationships with one another based on common affinities or classes, called Synergies. Using a Hybrid Synergy System, Illuvials are stronger when working as a team in the Battle Arena so make sure to collect synergising pairs to maximise your chance of victory. Different synergies create different bonuses for your team, allowing you to outplay your opponent—even if they have Illuvials with more raw power than you. Fusion allows you to merge multiple Illuvials of the same type into a more powerful beast, with different attributes, sometimes belonging to a completely different Class or Type. Remember that some Lines of Illuvials are very rare and hard to find, making their Fused form even more difficult to discover
Team Building
In the immersive environment of this shattered planet, Illuvials phase in and out of existence and will be hard to track (both to hunt and avoid) — but when you do, don’t expect an easy fight. Once the battle starts, each Illuvial will find an enemy to engage in combat, aided by your in-game character who possesses technology advanced enough to stand firm against these incredibly powerful creatures. Keep in mind the synergies between Illuvials — it can be the difference between victory and defeat! Engage the mysterious Illuvials in battle — and if you win, they can be stored in a Shard, where they will accompany you on your personal Odyssey. Shards vary in power — if you’re dealing with stronger Illuvials, be sure to use a stronger Shard. Otherwise, you risk losing that rare creature forever. Combat will make them stronger, grow in levels, and develop their power. Once you collect three that have each reached their threshold level, you can fuse them together into a single, more powerful creature. Don’t worry if an Illuvial gets injured — the shard it returns to has a time-based regenerative protocol for anything stored within it. Your fighting team will be able to get back to full health over certain intervals of time. If you want them back right away, however, it can be done by using various items or paying a small fee to bring them back to full health. Some are more rare than others, and if you are lucky you might just get a Shiny, Gold, or Holographic rare capture. If you do, your Illuvial will always stand out, intimidate, and perhaps reign undefeated, in the Arenas.
Affinities
The origins of Illuvials themselves is a mystery, but so is their affinity to the elements of this alien world. Illuvials connect predominantly with one of 5 elements: Water, Fire, Earth, Air and Nature. The most powerful Ascended form affinities with two elements (Frost = Air + Water), or a stronger bond with a single element (Inferno = Fire + Fire). Make sure your team is strategically chosen. Your Archeleon might be strong with its Overgrowth Affinity (Nature + Nature), but in combat with an Inferno Illuvial they will be at a severe disadvantage so choose wisely.
Classes
Illuvials are grouped into one of 5 classes: Fighter, Guardian, Rogue, Psion and Empath. As in many RPGs, the choices you make regarding the class of your Illuvials will affect the outcome of your battles with wild Illuvials. Draft a team ideally synergistic in qualities and traits that can work well together as a single fighting unit. Ascended forms are so powerful that sometimes they embody two classes simultaneously, such as Slayer (Fighter + Rogue), or become stronger in a single class such as Invoker (Psion + Psion).
The Illuviary
After the crash, you stumble upon an almanac, with the word “Illuviary” scrawled across it. One of your people must have landed here long ago. Inside, you will find an index of every Illuvial found across Illuvium, but all locked. To unlock the entries you must find and capture the Illuvials and record their digital signature into the Illuviary. If you are the first in the universe to discover a particular digital signature, your name will forever appear next to your discovery in the worldwide Illuviary database. But this digital signature contains far more than just their biology… It just might be the key to unlocking the mystery of Illuvium. From its inception, we envisioned Illuvium to be a game of discovery and mystery. As such, on release there will be no public information in-advance regarding many of the Illuvials in the world. We expect that many of the entries will be filled on Day One, but we hope that players enjoy that sense of wonder that comes from pure discovery and exploration.
How Do I Play?
Start by customising your character. Then select your Polymorphic Subordinate Drone. Once you and your sidekick are ready, you can then head out to explore the various regions of the world, and the mysteries that shattered it. As you adventure, you will encounter Illuvials that you can fight. If you subdue them, use a Shard to snap them up so they are yours permanently. Be careful though, Shards have varying power levels. Less powerful Shards are likely to fail against powerful Illuvials. For players just starting out, you will be able to mine free shards that are only capable of capturing a select few Illuvials that are far less powerful than some. But you will be able to get started in the game without any expense and learn the mechanics. We feel this is a welcome change from games that require a large amount of capital upfront to play. There are many regions to explore, but most will be inaccessible to the first generation of players. Over time, players will unlock Obelisks which allow for travel to new beautiful, challenging, and important regions that come with new Illuvials to battle and collect, and shed more light on the enigma that happened here.
In-Game Purchases
ETH is used for all in-game purchases and the fees are sent directly to the Illuvium Vault.
- Shard Curing
- Imbues (Modification to various elements of the game such as weapons or Drones)
- Wagering Battles
- Illuvium Revival (medical fees)
- Obelisk Travel
- Enhancements (Powerful stat boosts to the Illuvials)
Adventuring
For some players, the draw of the game will be travelling across the world and collecting Illuvials. This can be incredibly lucrative, especially if a player manages to capture something rare and powerful. Illuvials will become harder to capture over time. As more and more are found, their capture rate will change, because it is fundamentally tied to the number that have been captured thus far. The difficulty to capture Illuvials will also grow. As you adventure and encounter Illuvials in the wild, your current team (including yourself) will grow in power.
Battle Arenas
Other players will choose to battle each other to prove who is the superior Hunter. These players will queue in the Ranked Arena where they can be matched with a random opponent of a similar skill, or call out other players in ad-hoc wagered matches in the Leviathan Arena. Other players will be able to spectate and wager on the outcomes.
IlluviDEX (The Illuvium Exchange)
The Illuvium exchange is an online marketplace, governed by the Illuvium DAO, for players to buy and sell all in-game NFTs. The major component of the IlluviDEX is the trading of Illuvials, but all NFTs found in the game can be traded there..
Mining and Harvesting
Your subordinate drone isn’t just a good-looking gadget. In addition to storage and assistance during battle, your PSD is also capable of mining minerals from the planet’s surface, and forging them into useful items. The landscape is speckled with deposits that contain ore, uncured shards, and rare gemstones. After harvesting these, use your drone to forge them into weapons and suits of armor by infusing the materials with energy. Some materials are much more rare, and provide stronger bonuses to your equipment. Wield these yourself for an advantage in combat, or sell them on the IlluviDEX. Illuvium is also littered with trees that produce various alien fruits that pulsate with energy. Harvest these to create enhancements for your Illuvials in battle, or to nurse them back to health without heading back to Sanctum Mesa.
Shards
Shards are probably the most important item in the game. It is only with these shards that players are able to capture Illuvials that they best in combat. As such, each player will want to be stocked with a few before venturing into the world. You can mine them from deposits, but you’ll always want to make sure you have something available in case you encounter a rare Illuvial. Like most elements in the game, Shards come in a variety of tiers based on their power at capturing Illuvials. The stronger the Illuvial, the harder they are to capture. This is where a strong shard is most effective. The quality of the shard you pull from the ground is random, with the most powerful ones being the rarest. If you want to make sure that you can capture everything you find in the world, then it is worth checking out the IlluviDEX where you can acquire shards.
Weapons
In Illuvium, it is not just the Illuvials that fight. You as the player character get to fight in the battle, wielding futuristic weapons that can be equipped with gemstones that store the essence of Illuvials, allowing you to emit an aura that boosts your Illuvials in combat. Your choice of weapons also determines your class, which gives additional benefits to your team. Weapons can be sold on the IlluviDEX like most other NFTs in the game.
Armor
Also forged from items mined on Illuvium, armour is your defense against the beasts that you fight. If your armour becomes too damaged you may need to wait until it regenerates. However, your choice of armour can sway the battle, as each suit has different properties. Choosing the right one for you and your team is one of the many decisions you will make in the game. Armor can be sold on the IlluviDEX like most other NFTs in the game.
Imbues
Imbues are cosmetic changes that can add value to a player’s collection by further differentiating their acquisitions from others. Imbues are modular in nature and can be applied to multiple items, or you may decide to sell them on the IlluviDEX. Various items in the game can be imbued, such as weapons, armour and even your Drone.