Illuvium Preview: Everything You Need to Know About the NFT Games and Airdrop

Illuvium is a sci-fi fantasy NFT gaming IP with four games in development: Illuvium Arena, Overworld, Zero, and Beyond. While each of these titles are separate games, they do offer some interoperability and cross-game rewards.

The Illuvium team has also released its own Ethereum ERC-20 token, ILV, and its own marketplace, the Illuvidex. There’s also a community-based voting system in place with the Illuvium DAO, which suggests new initiatives for the Illuvium ecosystem.

After years of development, Illuvium appears to be nearing a proper launch—with some kind of airdrop coming too. Here’s what you need to know about the wide world of Illuvium.

What are Illuvium's NFTs?

There are over 150 different alien-like fictional creatures called Illuvials that populate the world of Illuvium. Illuvials are collectible NFTs, and each creature has different “synergies,” or affinities, that give them strengths and weaknesses against certain characters, like Pokémon. Illuvials can be used in Arena and Overworld.

But not every Illuvium NFT is an Illuvial—the team has also released emote NFTs, drone skins, and game badges, to name a few. The Illuvium team is also selling virtual land NFTs through its marketplace, the Illuvidex, to play Zero.

Fans can also buy Illuvitar D1sks, packs that contain an assortment of Illuvitars and accessories, to play Illuvium Beyond. Illuvitars are collectible profile-picture style NFTs inspired by the Illuvials.

What is the ILV token?

The Illuvium token, or ERC-20 ILV token, is Illuvium’s cryptocurrency and governance token. ILV is used to reward players in Illuvium’s various games, and it’s also a token used by the Illuvium DAO as a voting chip. ILV can also be staked for rewards.

The price of ILV peaked at $1,911 in November 2021, and has been down substantially since then. However, it's shown signs of life in recent months (as of this writing), climbing back near $150 in March 2024. It's up 130% since one year ago, and is one of the largest gaming tokens by market cap.

How does the Illuvium DAO work?

Illuvium has a token-based decentralized online community, or DAO, called the Illuvinati Governance, with roughly 4,400 members according to the DAO’s website. Within the Illuvium DAO, there's also a community sub-council. Members can vote on various proposals to help improve the Illuvium ecosystem, from technical changes to sale proposals to PVP tournaments.

Why does Illuvium use Immutable X?

Immutable X is a layer-2 Ethereum scaling blockchain from crypto startup Immutable. According to a 2022 blog post, Illuvium uses Immutable X because Immutable’s blockchain allows for “off-chain” NFT minting, and Immutable’s IMX token is not required for transactions. Immutable X also gives Illuvium the ability to offer more “gasless” or transaction-free activities, meaning that players won’t be forced to “sign” with their crypto wallets for every change made to their NFT collections.

What is Illuvium Arena?

Illuvium Arena is a player-vs-player (PVP), turn-based creature battle arena game where players must place down cards of their magic creatures, known as Illuvials, which become characters that automatically battle on a small, square game board. 

Illuvial NFTs can be purchased and traded, but some game versions and modes will allow players to access a small selection of Illuvials for free. In the turn-based 1v1 games of Arena, players must use character knowledge and strategy to defeat their opponents while also managing their card spend resources.

Arena’s Survival mode is a player-vs-environment (PVE) battle arena experience, in which players must fight the computer as it deploys waves of Illuvials onto the board. In Arena’s Ascendant mode, players can engage in PVP battles to climb the game’s leaderboard. In Arena’s Leviathan mode, players will be able to fight each other in a PVP-style “no-holds-barred” mode with the “most epic teams imaginable,” according to Illuvium’s website, which does not reveal further details about this mode.

At time of writing, Illuvium Arena is currently accepting registrations for its open beta, and is available on PC and Mac.

What is Illuvium Overworld?

Illuvium Overworld is the open-world role-playing game (RPG) in the Illuvium ecosystem. In Overworld, players can fly around, explore seven diverse and colorful regions, forge gear, harvest and mine resources, and catch Illuvials via mini Arena-like PVE game experiences. 

In Overworld, once a player approaches an Illuvial’s aura, they’ll be transported to an Arena battle setup where they’ll have to use their Illuvials to attempt to catch the new challenger.

Illuvium Overworld is currently taking open beta registrations and is available for PC and Mac gamers. 

What is Illuvium Zero?

Illuvium Zero is a real-time strategy (RTS) game in which gamers get to build and manage their own “digital industrial complex.” Zero is a resource extraction simulation game, allowing players to use the fuel they extract in Illuvium Overworld or sell it on the Illuvidex for crypto. Illuvium calls Zero a companion game, and its alpha version is currently available for land NFT owners only. Illuvium Zero will launch for Android devices, Mac, and PCs.

What is Illuvium Beyond?

Illuvium Beyond is a fully-released NFT-based browser experience where players can use their Illuvitar NFTs to climb a leaderboard. Each Illuvitar can have different accessories and traits that determine their “power rating.” The goal of Beyond is to get each Illuvitar’s power rating as high as possible via accessories and accumulating Album Points.

In a sense, Illuvium Beyond is a competitive art modification and collection game, where the art is a set of user-acquired animal cards. Beyond will offer a six-tier ranked system, where players will be assigned a rank from “unranked” through bronze, silver, gold, platinum, and diamond—similar to many competitive games.

The future

Illuvium’s Overworld and Arena games were added to the Epic Games Store via a 2-for-1 listing last November. The listing mentions plans to transition from the current early access phase into a proper open beta.

That's currently planned to happen during Q2 2024, as Illuvium Labs recently announced that release target alongside a $12 million funding round in March. And there's another interesting wrinkle here: plans for a community airdrop, valued at more than $25 million worth of tokens according to a press announcement.

Illuvium has since shared more details via a Twitter (aka X) thread, noting that players will be able to earn "airdrop points" through a play-to-airdrop campaign spanning Private Beta 4 from April 30 to May 28, and then into the open beta on testnet from May 28 until an as-yet-unannounced date. Anyone will be able to play during the testnet beta before the game ultimately launches in open beta on mainnet after that phase.

Edited by Andrew Hayward

Editor's note: This story was originally published on November 26, 2023 and last updated with new info on March 31, 2024.