Onessus Shrinks Dev Team; Shifts Focus to Project Venom

After the recent disappointing sales for both Voxelville and HodlGod, Onessus realized that they’ve taken on a bit more than they can handle at the moment, and made an announcement about a company shift. Onessus has cut back their dev teams and shutdown their HodlGod servers. However, a new offering called Project Venom, allowing use of many Onessus NFTs, is expected to be released in early May.

With a general pullback of the crypto markets and an ever increasing field of blockchain games, some projects are discovering that they need to rethink their tokenomics or re-envision their game plans. With a lackluster sale for Hodlgod Crosshair NFTs, the Onessus team announced plans to cut back on their developers while they seek private funding. However, in an effort to continue to provide value to their NFTs, Onessus also announced a new game, called Project Venom.

Project Venom

Project Venom is the newest release from Onessus. One designed to provide utility to most Onessus NFTs (HodlGod, Niftyville, and Yield Universe) and their VOID token. In a nod to the existing community of Onessus NFT holders, the team also announced that they have no plans to create specific NFTs for Project Venom at this time.

Project Venom is a battle royale game. But it’s not one that you play. It’s for spectators only. Ninety-six AI soldiers duke it out on a battlefield until only one emerges triumphant! We don’t yet have any info on how gameplay works. Onessus just describes it as a ‘stream and watch’ game. Presumably, players will be able to equip / build their soldiers using their NFTs. And maybe wager on the outcomes? The release notes mention teaming up with friends, but we’ll have to wait for more gameplay details before we can really know what to expect. But, if done well, this could actually be a pretty cool project. And it’s definitely something that we haven’t seen before. The team claims that Project Venom will be released sometime this week (first week of May)!

HodlGod, Niftyville, and other Products

Onessus recently held a sale for Crosshair NFTs for their fantasy FPS, HodlGod. These NFTs would function as in-game crosshairs to assist with aiming, and also allow wielders to earn a little extra during gameplay. However, the sale was not very successful. In fact, they only sold ~$3400 worth of NFTs! That probably didn’t even pay for the cost of making them! A recent auction of Niftyville apartments was also a bit disappointing. And so, without the funds to support a full sized team and keep the servers running, Onessus made some hard decisions.

The HodlGod servers will be shut down until the game is ready for release. The Niftyville release will be delayed, though the team still promises another property auction later this month. Onessus also has two other projects, Void Elementals and Boysterous. These weren’t explicitly mentioned in the official announcement, but neither project has had an update in many months, so I wouldn’t expect anything new there. Their metaverse project, Yield Universe, may still be active? I’m not sure on that one.

What’s Next for Onessus?

Onessus announced that they are seeking private funding to continue development. And they obviously hope that Project Venom will bring some renewed life to their company and interest in their NFTs. They seem hopeful on the forums that they will soon be able to kick development into gear again and re-open the Hodlgod servers. I certainly hope that they can turn things around, but the blockchain gaming market has become a lot more competitive over the past year.

And I expect this is just the beginning of a shift for the blockchain games industry. I think that we will see a lot more game closures, pivots, and shutdowns over the coming months. The game market is becoming more saturated every day. And the rabid excitement for any and every game NFT release has cooled quite a bit. With a relatively small playerbase, blockchain games are going to need to focus on providing utility to their customers (either economically or in entertainment value, preferably both), delivering content, and standing out from the crowd.