The adoption of crypto as an institutional asset is booming, and stablecoins are beginning to eat the world of global payments, so where does blockchain gaming go?
It’s a tough question, but there are plenty of companies still up for overcoming the challenges of combining the fun and entertainment of gaming with the technical advantages of decentralization and asset ownership enabled by blockchains.
So, for the third consecutive year, here’s our breakdown of the companies we think will be making headlines and driving adoption in the next 12 months.
50. Neon Machine
It’s been a difficult few years for US studio Neon Machine. While developing its PC extraction shooter Shrapnel, the company has also had to contend with a lawsuit involving its co-founders and original investor, alongside a migration from its original Avalanche-based infrastructure to GalaChain. If that weren’t complex enough, its most recent funding round has coincided with a strategic shift towards China, with GalaChain itself collaborating with the government-backed Trusted Copyright Chain. 2026 will be the year we find out whether this bet pays off — and whether this once anticipated game still has an audience outside, or inside, its newly prioritised home market.
49. Somnia
Launched at speed with testnet in February and mainnet live in September, the Somnia blockchain looks to leverage its EVM compatibility and a headline throughput of 1 million transactions per second. Incubated and backed by UK venture builder Improbable, the task in 2026 will be to fulfil that initial momentum with apps and games that generate economically meaningful onchain activity. One advantage should be the ability to integrate existing web2 experiences without rebuilding them from scratch. However, with no shortage of performant EVM chains competing for developers, Somnia faces plenty of competition from more established ecosystems.
48. Mon Protocol
Formed to resurrect one of blockchain gaming’s most infamous moments – the September 2022 Pixelmon NFT mint – Mon Protocol has found building an ecosystem more complex than reversing a meme. This has particularly been the case following the deflation of market sentiment around protocol and ecosystem tokens during 2025; something Mon Protocol continues to believe in with its token launchpad activity. Nevertheless, with the launch of mobile idle game Nova Thera Chronicles completed plus the forthcoming Warden’s Ascent and Warriors of Nova Thera – all on Avalanche – it’s still game on for a project that has already turned failure into success once before.
47. Youmio
Skating to where the puck is going to be is a much-loved cliché of MBA programmes. In the real business world, however, it remains a genuinely valuable skill — and one that neatly describes Youmio’s trajectory in recent years. Originally launched as Today, a cosy UGC-centric game with strong AI elements, the project has repeatedly remodelled itself in line with prevailing trends. That included the early launch of its Limbo agent and her Solana-based token during the initial AI agent crypto boom. Since then, Youmio has been building out a broader AI agent ecosystem — its agents, known as Mios — on Avalanche. If there is a moment for Youmio to convert strategic agility into sustained traction, 2026 is it.
46. Arbitrum Gaming Ventures
Despite hundreds of millions of dollars being nominally attributed to blockchain ecosystem funds, relatively little capital has actually been deployed into blockchain game projects during the current downturn. One notable exception is Arbitrum Gaming Ventures, which emerged almost accidentally — and not without controversy — as an outgrowth of the Arbitrum DAO structure. Nevertheless, the once loosely defined Gaming Catalyst Program has since evolved into a formal organisation, with experienced staff, a clear mandate, and tens of millions of dollars still available for deployment.
45. Telegram/TON
Following a stellar 2024 when Telegram was the meta for lightweight blockchain games, particularly thanks to the momentum of play-to-earn token airdrops on TON, 2025 proved to be a more difficult year. Partly this was purely due to crowding out effects and the general collapse in game token sentiment. More fundamental, however, was the challenge of building sustained retention into these sorts of experiences. But plenty of projects are still keeping the faith, not least thanks to the potential of Telegram’s massive 1 billion audience, all of whom have access to an integrated TON wallet.
44. MetaKing Studios
The defining event for MetaKing Studios in 2025 was the launch of its Lordchain, one of the first L3 appchains to go live on Base. Designed to future-proof its PC strategy title Blocklords, the chain also provides deeper utility for the LRDS token, which now underpins gas fees, staking, and onchain governance. Blocklords itself continued to expand throughout the year, running multiple seasons and content updates, with a particular emphasis on its battle mode and large-scale Region Wars. In 2026, the focus shifts from ecosystem building to audience validation, with the game’s long-anticipated launch on Steam set to test whether that momentum can translate beyond the web3 core.
43. Portal
Back when projects could launch tokens on little more than high concepts and hot marketing, Portal attracted investor enthusiasm with its ambition to become gaming’s “universal liquidity network”. Exactly what that meant was never entirely clear, but for a time, the lack of concrete utility proved no barrier to capital. That ambiguity has since been addressed, at least structurally, through the merger with Animoca Brands’ BLIFE unit. Originally launched as the EVM-based game Life Beyond, BLIFE has since repositioned itself as a Bitcoin-centric protocol for web3 applications. The combined entity now operates under the Portal brand, retains the Portal token, and benefits from new capital and partnerships via Animoca. Whether this marks the start of a coherent product strategy is the question for 2026.
42. ElizaOS
Although launched as ai16z, a tongue-in-cheek automated AI agent DAO for memecoin trading, ElizaOS has since evolved into a serious piece of infrastructure for building AI agents that can interact with blockchains and crypto-native payments. Now one of the most actively used open-source agent frameworks on GitHub, ElizaOS provides modular tooling for creating persistent agents with memory and a maintained identity. These agents can operate across platforms such as X and Discord, interact with DAOs, call external APIs, and execute onchain actions — placing ElizaOS at the intersection of autonomous agents, crypto coordination, and early experiments in gaming and entertainment.
41. Sequence
Building and selling blockchain game tooling — from wallets to marketplaces — is a difficult business, demanding both deep technical expertise and sustained commercial discipline. That is the path Sequence has pursued for the past seven years, with a measure of success, securing partnerships with the likes of Ubisoft, Immutable, TapNation, and ApeChain. This makes its recent high-value acquisition by Polygon Labs particularly intriguing. The key question for 2026 is whether integration into the Polygon stack accelerates Sequence’s execution — or whether Polygon’s increasing emphasis on crypto banking and financial infrastructure ultimately dilutes its gaming focus.
40. ATMTA
Although Star Atlas has waned in the crypto consciousness, with an active playerbase of around 10,000, developer ATMTA continues to execute steadily on its long term vision. Most notably, alongside iterative improvements to its various game interfaces, the studio has now launched its own blockchain. Zink is a Solana VM-compatible protocol with zero-knowledge identity primitives, designed to let players build persistent onchain identity and reputation through activity across the Star Atlas ecosystem. This now spans the Unreal Engine 3D client — featuring flight, racing, and dogfight test modes — the fully onchain SAGE Labs economic simulator, and Holosim, an accessible web2 introduction to the universe. Token prices remain depressed, of course, but in terms of shipping infrastructure and playable systems, the dream lives on.
39. Virtuals
In the vanguard of the late 2024 AI agentic boom, Virtuals quickly demonstrated product–market fit, spanning agent creation, social media interactions, and memecoin-driven experimentation. This traction provided meaningful validation for a team that began life as gaming guild PathDAO, and which underwent multiple pivots before settling on its current form. Progress since has been less straightforward. But the platform has slowly moved beyond novelty and speculation towards firmer foundations. With the launch of its institutional-grade Titan tier, the steady maturation of its Agent Commerce Protocol, and a forthcoming agent marketplace, Virtuals appears well-positioned for the next phase of the agent economy, whatever shape it ultimately takes.
38. Delabs Games
South Korean developer Delabs Games has become something of a bellwether for the disruption that has buffeted the blockchain games sector in recent years. Initially planning to launch three PC titles to bootstrap its ecosystem, the studio first pivoted toward Telegram, embracing more snackable play-to-earn experiences on TON. It subsequently broadened this strategy through mini-dapps distributed via LINE Next, doubling down on casual gameplay and platform-native distribution. Now, however, Delabs is among the first studios to publicly align itself with the next wave, positioning itself explicitly as an AI-first developer. By leveraging the Verse8 platform, alongside access to established IP and a hard-won understanding of marketing and distribution, Delabs looks well placed to navigate the next phase of the sector in 2026.
37. Yuga Labs
Where next for Bored Apes? Having retreated from its overambitious attempt to become an umbrella brand for all blue-chip cultural NFTs, Yuga Labs has streamlined operations and refocused. That means its core Bored Ape Yacht Club ecosystem and the Otherside metaverse experience, which delivered its first large-scale playable release in late 2025. With NFT prices unlikely to rebound meaningfully in the near term, the challenge now is unglamorous: operational execution, steady content delivery, and the gradual accumulation of builders and players inside Otherside. The acquisition of the co-development platform team from UK studio Improbable should help optimize production and live-ops, while the opening of the physical Bored Ape clubhouse in Miami will offer a tangible focal point for community identity and events.
36. NDUS Interactive
In between the extremes of fully onchain degen games and mass-market, blockchain-abstracted experiences, is there still room for a title that combines compelling gameplay with overt blockchain mechanics? That is the bet being made by South Korean developer NDUS Interactive, which plans to launch its pop extraction PC shooter Xociety on the Sui blockchain in 2026. Despite originating within the EVM ecosystem, NDUS is hoping that its positioning as one of Sui’s signature games will provide both technical headroom and marketing differentiation. More importantly, Xociety is built around the idea that there is “no free lunch”: a competitive, faction-based metagame designed to align player expectations around risk, loss, and progression. The message is clear — this is an extraction shooter, not a system designed to be extracted by its players.
35. Igloo Inc.
As the holding company behind Pudgy Penguins, the PENGU token, and the Abstract blockchain, Igloo Inc. has proven remarkably adept at bringing crypto closer to a mass-market audience than any of its peers. Recent IP activations — such as its newly announced partnership with Manchester City in a World Cup year — underline the company’s forward-thinking approach to brand and distribution. Igloo is also innovating in how game content is delivered and monetized. Mobile title Pudgy Party is the first game to launch on the PvP-rewarded tournament platform Pulse Arena, operated by publishing partner Mythical Games. With these businesses accelerating in parallel, 2026 looks set to push the Igloo attention flywheel ever faster.
34. Ava Labs
Although much of the crypto sector has only recently repositioned itself towards institutions and payments, Ava Labs has long anticipated the need for blockchains to be both robust with respect to regulations and technically flexible. That thinking underpins the design of the Avalanche network, which supports both shared infrastructure and highly customised deployments, allowing developers to operate their own networks while remaining part of a broader ecosystem. As a result, Avalanche has attracted institutional users such as JPMorgan, Citigroup, and VanEck, while also proving popular with game developers. These range from large studios such as Nexon and Gunzilla Games, to indie teams including Kingdom Studios and Empires Not Vampires.
33. STAN
Only its most passionate advocates still believe in mass audience crypto-based gaming. Nevertheless, examples remain, demonstrating that incentives can be balanced at scale. One such is STAN, which has leveraged the size of its domestic market, India, and the Aptos blockchain to build a mobile app esports and influencer-based social community. STAN’s growth was accelerated in 2025 following the Indian government crackdown on real-money gaming. This upturned what had been the country’s most lucrative monetization mechanism, also triggering investors to redeploy their capital. This enabled STAN to close a $10.5 million funding round. The company also launched its new Photon protocol, which enables users to verify their in-app actions onchain using zero-knowledge proofs.
32. Moku
One of Ronin’s strongest communities, Moku is looking to build on its base by tapping into the AI and prediction market wave with Grand Arena. The project is anchored by Moku’s existing Moki Genesis NFTs, and it successfully sold out its first set of booster boxes too. Grand Arena has an ambitious goal, which sees Moki characters trained and guided by AI, competing in a PVP arena, with spectators wagering on the outcome. Season 1 is backed by $1 million in various rewards, while the company also hopes to include other NFT collections in future seasons as it tries to establish an ongoing, vibrant ecosystem on Sky Mavis’ blockchain.
31. Proof of Play
What a tough year for US developer Proof of Play. Its fully onchain game Pirate Nation unravelled as its audience exploded with an influx of extractive players. This caused a surge of activity on its Apex and Boss L3 blockchains, seeing operating costs quickly becoming unsustainable. The only decision Proof of Play could make was a surprise announcement that it was shutting down both game and blockchains. Cue outrage from the community. But it’s not game over. Moving to the Abstract blockchain, Proof of Play is running a pay-for-rewards version of Pirate Nation through its Arcade platform. And it’s working on new games to plug into the arcade, while its B2B infrastructure business is also showing signs of traction.
30. Avalon Corp
It takes a long time to build a blockchain-enabled AI-powered UGC MMORPG sandbox. That’s what’s been happening with Avalon over the past 12 months as it’s cycled through closed testing for various systems, ranging from combat and exploration to its deep UGC features. Indeed, US developer Avalon Corp. has been particularly keen to highlight the ability of players to create their own complex buildings, adding variation to build villages, populating them with custom AI-driven NPCs to make worlds in styles ranging from high fantasy to sci-fi. For those less interested in building from scratch, Avalon also promises a range of templates designed to support more action-focused playstyles. With a first beta currently targeted for Q1, it shouldn’t be long before players get a clearer sense of how much of this vision translates into a coherent, playable experience.
29. Pixion
First announced in 2022, UK studio Pixion has managed to thread the needle of keeping its audience engaged while also giving itself the space to ensure its mobile ARPG Fableborne is exactly the game it wants it to be. Aside from a switch of chains from Avalanche to Ronin, this process has been more about finessing a solid original design than wholesale changes. The most recent playtest saw the introduction of a new character, and optimized rewards mechanics, as well as the first version of its guild system, and extended web2 monetization. Combined with the successful launch of the POWER token in late November 2025, it marks out the project as that rare thing: a blockchain game delivering immediate gameplay and deeper progression to multiple player types.
28. Limit Break
What’s happening at US developer Limit Break? The truth is that no one outside the company really knows. On the protocol side, its ERC721-C standard has become widely adopted for new NFT collections, thanks to its ability to enforce creator royalty payments at the contract level. Uptake of the more complex ERC20-C standard has been slower, however, largely because these so-called AppTokens require significant retrofitting of existing live economies. Even so, recent launches such as Pixels’ vPIXEL and Ronin’s bAXS and bRON tokens suggest progress is being made. The larger question is whether Limit Break will ever expand its DigiDaigaku NFT collection into something meaningfully interactive. Development activity reportedly continues at the company’s Japanese studio on an as-yet-undefined game project. Optimists hope this will culminate in a 2026 launch that redefines blockchain gaming. Realists are more sanguine.
27. Treasure
Demonstrating that decisive action around a new thesis can reinvigorate a lacklustre project, 2025 saw Treasure regain its mojo around the promise of onchain AI agents. The opportunity was forced on the team by the realisation that its plan for a wider gaming ecosystem built around Treasure Chain was unsustainable, both figuratively and financially. However, a strong top-down reorganisation and community buy-in, combined with tighter cost control, have put the project on a sounder footing. Activity in Bridgeworld and Smolworld, alongside integrations with external projects such as Gigaverse and Fishing Frenzy, also points to early signs of market acceptance. How explosively the new plan scales in 2026 remains uncertain, but at least Treasure now exerts a greater degree of control over its own future.
26. Soccerverse
Now into its third season, Polygon-based fully onchain football management and economy simulator Soccerverse is flying the flag for the potential for autonomous worlds. With over 3,000 clubs and 170,000 players, there’s plenty of optionality available for managers to drive their success, both through match-by-match tactical decisions and longer-term transfer and squad-building strategies. This sense of authenticity has been further strengthened by the recent announcement of a FIFPRO licence, granting the game official rights to real-world player identities. And underpinning everything are the deeper machinations of investors and traders, who compete for control of the most valuable assets. These could be unlocked by scouting up-and-coming talent or capitalizing teams so they can get promoted, unlocking more prize money as the seasons roll on. Another key feature is the game’s decentralized exchange, which means that all crypto in-and-outflows are peer-to-peer, ensuring the game isn’t impacted by the vagaries of short-term speculative pressure.
25. Ubisoft
Still the only major western game publisher actively involved in blockchain games, Ubisoft’s focus is its forthcoming PC and mobile TCG Might & Magic: Fates. Co-developed with Immutable, the game completed its first NFT sale and, prior to its planned Q1 launch, is already seeing some trading of these assets. Of course, given prevailing market sentiment, the title will ship a web3 version incorporating NFTs, alongside a web2 release targeting platforms such as Steam. As for Ubisoft’s live blockchain titles, Captain Laserhawk: the G.A.M.E. is the one experiencing the most attention. Thanks to a partnership with LibertAI, players can create their own AI agent who can interact in a new governance system; a mechanic that enhances the game’s broader themes of dystopian satire and control.
24. Wearemighty
Starting 2025 as Mighty Bear Games, the Singapore developer was another blockchain-native studio that demonstrated artful nimbleness in its business strategy. After adopting Telegram as its primary distribution channel, it experimented hard and fast in terms of the best content to deliver. This saw it cycling through projects including GOAT Gaming, AlphaGOAT AI agents, and the idle game Underground Pepe, before eventually converging on the surprise-driven mini-game ecosystem Gifts.fun. Crucially, this pace of experimentation was enabled by the adoption of an AI-assisted production pipeline, allowing small teams to ship, test, and discard ideas at speed. It was this growth of capability, rather than any individual product, that emerged as the company’s strongest point of differentiation. And this realisation ultimately drove a corporate-level repositioning, with Mighty Bear Games rebranding as Wearemighty to better reflect its evolving identity.
23. LINE Next
The web3 arm of the LINE mobile app ecosystem, LINE Next’s goal has been to match the success of Telegram by integrating the Kaia blockchain within its Messenger app. In this manner, it hopes to highlight the benefits of blockchain to its 200 million active users while minimizing complexity. One advantage it has is the strong concentration of users in core markets such as Japan, Taiwan, Thailand and Indonesia, who have shared cultural values. LINE has always had a focus on brand IP through its stickers business. Expanding this into a game platform is a complex process, but some of LINE Next’s Mini Dapps have already found success. Top performer Slime Miner hit $2 million in monthly revenue. And, aside from its messaging play, infrastructure product NEXT Market has already demonstrated the power of blockchain. Its first integration with Smilegate’s Lordnine: Infinite Class MMORPG powered over $15 million of trading volume in its first month.
22. Parallel Studios
The promise of new games is always more exciting than the day-to-day optimization of a live product. So while Parallel Studios can point to two interesting games in development, its reputation is being built on its eponymous TCG, which is available on PC, with mobile to follow in Q1 2026. Where the company stands out, however, is its commitment to position the title as a serious esport, both in terms of tournament scheduling via the Parallel Prime League and around $4 million in prize funding across multiple seasons. The same mindset is reflected in its release of physical packs, which link to digital content. As for those new games, Colony is an AI-centric survival simulation, while Sanctuary is a third-person shooter. All three will be standalone experiences but with ecosystem integration, based on shared lore, characters, avatars and game accounts, with the PRIME token acting as the economic layer.
21. Uncharted Studios
Following a number of experiments, Uncharted Studios appears to have found its Schelling Point in the form of Fishing Frenzy, a competitive cosy game. One of the new generation of titles on Ronin, it blends familiar web2-style progression with tradable web3 assets such as gear and special fish, underpinned by a leaderboard-based rewards structure. Supported by the introduction of its FISH token, the game has sustained a player base of around 25,000 daily active users and generated more than $1 million in revenue to-date. The next phase focuses on audience expansion through improved mobile browser UX, alongside stronger retention driven by deeper progression systems and the cadence of seasonal content.
20. Mysten Labs
While Ethereum compatibility remains a key factor for most blockchain game ecosystems, there are still viable competitors beyond the likes of Solana and Polkadot. Formed from the ashes of Facebook’s Diem project, the breakthrough moment for Mysten Labs’ Sui blockchain came with CCP Games’ decision to adopt it for MMOG EVE Frontier MMOG. Its object-centric execution model was cited as the key reason, with sub-second finality, high TPS throughput and very low transaction fees as contributory factors, particularly for such an asset-heavy game. Together, these characteristics make it easier to deliver web2-style user experiences while keeping blockchain complexity largely hidden from players. Other games using Sui include Xociety, Code of Joker: Evolutions and Samurai Shodown R, while esports organisation Team Liquid is building its fan engagement platform on the chain. Mysten Labs has further underlined its gaming ambitions through a partnership with Playtron, alongside the launch of SuiPlay0X1 handheld PC.
19. The Sandbox
After a long period of inertia, The Sandbox is showing signs of renewed momentum, rebooting its C-suite in an effort to accelerate product development and rebuild excitement. Remarkably, more than three years after its first playable release, the platform still remains formally in alpha and has struggled to sustain strong concurrent user numbers between seasonal activations. In response, it’s attempting to quicken its release cadence and refocus from brand-led activations towards genuine user-generated content. At the same time, it is expanding its broader vision. Seeking to leverage the deep liquidity of its $400 million market cap SAND token and its creator-centric positioning, the company has launched Corners, a new platform that allows users to issue content collections with their own associated tokens and trade them with others. Whether this attempt to remix creator tooling with memecoin-style dynamics can generate sustained engagement remains to be seen, but it represents a tangible step towards broadening the platform’s economic and creative vision.
18. Pixels
Pixels CEO Luke Barwikowski began 2025 emphasising the importance of the game’s Return on Reward Spend (RoRS) metric, and it remains the core principle he continues to build the business around. One of the industry’s last true believers in play-to-earn, Barwikowski argues that a sustainable, mass-market audience can still be achieved through careful targeting of rewards, whether delivered via web2 or web3 incentives. Under this framework, success is defined by maintaining a RoRS consistently above one, a threshold Pixels has demonstrated it can reach, albeit not on a sustained basis. That challenge explains why the original thesis underpinning the social farming game is being progressively extended: first through the launch of the PIXEL staking platform, and next with the planned 2026 mobile launch of Stacked, a standalone rewards application designed to broaden the funnel while retaining economic discipline.
17. Sport.Fun
Following past examples of NBA Top Shots and Sorare comes Sport.Fun. Albeit without the protection of official licenses, it’s successfully combined the global appeal of real-world sports and the speculative energy of degen crypto rewards into a fantasy sports experience with a deeper ownership model. Launched initially as Football.Fun, the project has moved fast, quickly expanding, launching an NFL game, with an NBA game inbound. The ecosystem’s FUN token has also recently been launched on Base, gaining a $20 million market cap. This has introduced clear exit liquidity for sellers, something the project now needs to carefully balance against the longer-term retention dynamics across its fantasy ecosystem.
16. Voya Games
With a pedigree built on idle games that have generated tens of millions of dollars, it’s little surprise that German studio Voya Games now runs the most successful idle blockchain game in the form of Craft World. After quietly iterating on testnet for several years, the browser and mobile app went live on Ronin, and immediately made its presence felt. The catalyst was a well-timed play-to-airdrop event, which sent player numbers surging. As a heavily onchain design — where every resource exists as an ERC20 token — the game generated such trading activity that it congested the entire blockchain. Having tweaked its onchain activity, Voya has executed on its broader ecosystem strategy with Craft World becoming a connective hub within Ronin, running time-limited crossover events with projects such as Fishing Frenzy, Ronke and Kanstar. These events layer competitive leaderboard play on top of idle progression, with players chasing raffle tickets, NFT drops and cosmetic rewards. The result is a game that turns routine play into sustained onchain activity, while anchoring itself firmly inside a wider network.
15. Gunzilla Games
Developing and launching both a game and its own gaming blockchain is one kind of achievement. Dealing with the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation is quite another. Yet German studio Gunzilla Games has now done both. Its PC and console shooter Off The Grid, alongside the Avalanche-based Gunz blockchain, has been live for around 15 months. More recently, the studio has also gained a Virtual Asset Service Provider license and navigated the complexities of MiCA, securing regulatory clearance for its GUN token to be treated as a utility crypto-asset, rather than a security, within the European Union. This means GUN can now be traded legally across the bloc’s 27 member states and used within Off The Grid, as well as in any future games built on the Gunz platform. Crucially, it has also given Gunzilla the confidence to migrate EU PC players from the testnet to mainnet, finally assigning real economic value to their on-chain assets. The result has been a sharp increase in activity, with Off The Grid now recording around 50,000 daily on-chain active wallets, making it one of the most widely used blockchain games to date.
14. GLHF
Demonstrating that crypto remains a space where experiments can scale rapidly, the team behind GLHF began life, by its own account, as “four anonymous part-timers in a Discord server with no tools, no roadmap, and no sweaty business plan”. A year later, its onchain RPG Gigaverse has generated more than $5 million in revenue. Charging $20 in ETH to create an account, the game has attracted over 80,000 players on the Abstract blockchain; a notable level of adoption for a fully onchain title. Alongside a $2 million funding round, this traction has enabled GLHF to scale to a ten-person team and begin planning its next phase of growth. The roadmap includes expanding the Gigaverse IP by introducing deeper PvE, PvP, and guild-based systems. The project is also evolving into a broader ecosystem, allowing third-party developers to build their own applications and games using Gigaverse assets and infrastructure.
13. Immutable
Although it remains the largest gaming blockchain in terms of the number of partnered titles, Immutable has adjusted its focus. Instead of looking to drive infrastructure adoption, it is increasingly positioning itself as a distribution and marketing layer for games, including titles that do not necessarily run on Immutable, or even any blockchain at all. The logic is straightforward. Through its Play rewards platform, Immutable has accumulated millions of users, each with wallets, identities, and trackable actions. By widening the pool of games users can engage with, Immutable can maximize engagement while monetising its audience indirectly, through marketing partnerships. This does not mean the company has abandoned its blockchain ambitions. Immutable continues to invest in its zkEVM stack, Passport, and developer tooling. However, in current market conditions, infrastructure growth has not translated into the same level of business as in earlier cycles. Of course, that balance could shift again, notably with the high-profile and imminent launch of Ubisoft’s Might & Magic: Fates.
12. Cambria
Inspired by the likes of RuneScape and Ultima Online, Cambria describes itself as the world’s first risk-to-earn MMORPG, tempting players with the prospect of outsized rewards and the reality of total loss. Its success had an outsized impact on the degen onchain gaming community, underlining how much engagement high-stakes designs can generate. Crucially, Cambria is also one of the clearest expressions of the purist thesis for blockchain games: that the technology should be integral to the experience. Full loot mechanics, real economic consequences, and trustless settlement are the game. Running on the Ronin blockchain, Cambria is structured around two core modes. The first is a tightly focused 1v1, winner-takes-all battle format. The second is Gold Rush, a more expansive seasonal open world that blends PvE, PvP, and extraction-style risk management. Most recently, Season 3 generated a prize pool worth $1.7 million, which was distributed among the highest-performing players and guilds. It’s such activity, and its developers’ deep thinking about incentives, that places Cambria among the most economically consequential experiments in onchain game design.
11. Playful Studios
With its 2v2 collectible card action game Wildcard now in Early Access on Steam, US developer Playful Studios faces the more difficult task of turning promise into traction. That means evolving Wildcard into the kind of polished, competitive experience capable of attracting and retaining a sustainable player base. In practical terms, this centres on continued development, particularly around matchmaking, ranking, and leaderboard systems, while the game’s regular tournaments are being reinforced with progressively larger prize pools to sharpen its competitive appeal. Alongside the game, Playful is also building Thousands, its web3-native streaming and engagement platform. While already live in limited form, Thousands is still some distance from being fully realised. If executed successfully, it is intended to provide an economic flywheel for Wildcard, scaling player acquisition through creator-led marketing, live events, and community-driven incentives. The final layer is Wildcard Fantasy League, a web3 esports infrastructure that allows participants to sponsor in-game characters, operate teams, and even own arenas, earning a share of the revenues generated across the wider Wildcard ecosystem. Together, these three elements define Playful’s ambition: not just to ship a competitive game, but to construct a vertically integrated blockchain-based esports and engagement stack around it.
10. Hytopia
The journey for the UGC project that began life as NFT Worlds has been long and winding. Yet after a decisive pivot, Hytopia is now beginning to realise the substance, if not the original form, of its founding vision. Recent milestones include the launch of its HYBUX token on Base and more than 2.5 million downloads of its mobile app on Google Play. The project’s early ambition, to layer crypto payment rails directly into Minecraft, was famously curtailed when developer Mojang banned blockchain integrations. What has emerged in its place, however, is arguably more robust. Today, Hytopia strongly resembles a crypto-enabled alternative to Roblox, offering creators a world editor that combines no-code and AI-assisted tooling with a traditional SDK and scripting layer for more advanced developers. Its revenue cut is also only 15%. And these foundations are now driving user traction. As the quality and diversity of games on the platform have improved, so too has its audience. Hytopia is currently attracting over 400,000 monthly users, with particularly strong adoption in Southeast Asia, driven by its emphasis on browser access and support for entry-level Android devices.
9. Dacoco
One of the unsung heroes of blockchain gaming, Swiss studio Dacoco is atypical compared to most projects in the sector. It has avoided hyperbole and short-term degen incentives, instead quietly and consistently building the community around its onchain game Alien Worlds. Rooted in its heritage as a DAO-software developer, Dacoco’s vision since Alien Worlds’ 2020 launch has been community-first. Players organise themselves across the game’s six mineable planets, known as Planetary Syndicates, each of which operates as a DAO with its own governance processes and treasury, funded in the game’s Trilium (TLM) token. This activity is reinforced by its Galactic Hub grants program, funding games and apps based on Alien Worlds’ underlying assets. More recently, Dacoco has pushed to deepen the universe itself, expanding Alien Worlds’ underlying lore. The original narrative was created by science-fiction author Kevin J. Anderson, with the intention that the community would extend it over time, a process now being accelerated through the introduction of the Lynx AI systems. Again, Dacoco’s DAO focus shapes the design. Through the concept of tokenised lore, Trilium holders are able to vote on which stories, characters, and developments are accepted as official canon, embedding decentralised governance not just into the game’s economy, but into its evolving narrative itself.
8. KGeN
With the decline of play-to-earn, the traditional model of gaming guilds has largely been discredited. Yet a small number of guild-derived organisations continue to thrive by evolving beyond asset rental and yield extraction. One such is KGeN. Originally formed as the Indian subDAO of Yield Guild Games, KGeN was taken over and rebooted by an experienced team of gaming executives. Since then, it has expanded well beyond its domestic roots, building meaningful audiences across Latin America and Southeast Asia. The result is genuine scale: more than 40 million registered users and approximately 800,000 daily active users, figures that place it among the largest consumer networks in web3. Crucially, KGeN has also reworked the guild model. It has repositioned around the verification of onchain activity. Branded as its Verified Distribution Model (VeriFi) and built on the Aptos blockchain, the system allows users to accumulate reputation through the Proof of Gamer engine, a dynamic metric that blends ongoing onchain actions, spending behaviour, and social engagement. For developers, this creates a powerful primitive: the ability to design incentives that reward verified users performing verified actions, rather than anonymous wallets or easily gamed activity. That same logic underpins KGeN’s K-Store, which surfaces offers and rewards that can be redeemed using earned KCash or conventional fiat payment methods. The launch of the KGEN token in October 2025 added further optionality to the ecosystem, as did the company’s $13.5 million funding round, which brought total capital raised to $45 million. Taken together, these developments underline KGeN’s transition from a regional guild experiment into a global verification and distribution layer for games and adjacent consumer products.
7. Sky Mavis
The shift has been quiet, but over the past 12 months, the type of games successfully building on Sky Mavis’ Ronin blockchain has changed. Broad, mass-market activations have given way to fully onchain experiences, often embracing overtly degen mechanics. The rise of titles such as Cambria, Craft World and Fishing Frenzy reflects a wider recalibration across blockchain gaming. With token prices depressed, and simple reward-driven loops no longer viable, Ronin has become a proving ground for games that derive engagement from onchain complexity and risk. In that sense, Ronin has found a clearer form of product-market fit in a harsher market environment. This shift has inevitably affected Sky Mavis too. Through its RON and AXS tokens, the company remains closely associated with what is still labelled GameFi. But rather than retreat, Sky Mavis has been adjusting its approach. At the protocol level, the introduction of bAXS and bRON, built using the AppToken standard, gives the company tighter control over reward flows, emissions, and the conditions under which value can be extracted. The larger strategic opportunity, however, lies elsewhere. Sky Mavis’ most important bet remains the continued development of Axie Infinity’s forthcoming MMORPG, Atia’s Legacy. By extending Axie’s already well-distributed and highly liquid asset base into a deeper, combat-driven gameplay experience, the studio is attempting something more ambitious than another iteration of play-to-earn. If successful, Atia’s Legacy could help reset expectations for the sector, demonstrating a more sustainable economic model in which engagement, progression, and value creation are more tightly aligned.
6. Mythical Games
As a World Cup year, 2026 promises to be a massive opportunity for US blockchain game developer and platform Mythical Games. Most obviously, its mobile title FIFA Rivals is currently the only officially licensed FIFA football game. Launched in June 2025, it attracted more than one million downloads during its initial launch phase; a figure Mythical will be aiming to scale materially in the run-up to the tournament’s 11 June kickoff. However, Mythical’s ambition extends beyond individual game launches. The company is in the midst of a significant shift in its marketplace strategy, migrating activity to its new Pulse Marketplace, where all assets are priced in the USDC stablecoin. Previously, trading was denominated in the highly volatile MYTH token, a dynamic that dampened volumes due to price uncertainty. Pulse is more than a marketplace, though. Notably, its Pulse Arena layer introduces new engagement and monetisation mechanics, enabling players to enter paid tournaments and compete for a share of pooled prize money. The first title to integrate Pulse Arena is mobile party game Pudgy Party, but the expectation is that the feature will roll out across Mythical’s full portfolio, including third-party titles, and potentially web2 games seeking blockchain-native monetisation without token exposure.
5. Animoca Brands
Although far less operationally focused on games than in previous cycles, Animoca Brands remains a consequential force in blockchain gaming by virtue of its historic deal-making. Core majority-owned assets, including The Sandbox and Anichess, sit alongside ecosystem projects such as Portal, REVV, and TOWER, as well as newer additions such as SOMO. However, in 2026, the company’s priority isn’t about any specific project, gaming or not. It’s the successful execution of its proposed public listing via a reverse takeover of Nasdaq-listed Currency Group. Announced in late 2025, the transaction is expected to take most of the year to complete, reflecting regulatory scrutiny and the need for shareholder approval on both sides. Assuming completion, the listing would mark a step change: transforming Animoca into a publicly traded vehicle with a small but profitable operating arm and exposure to more than 600 portfolio companies across gaming and the wider digital asset ecosystem. Whether public markets ultimately reward that structure, or apply the customary discounts associated with complex, crypto-correlated holding companies, will be the defining question in the year ahead.
4. CCP Games
Given CCP Games’ long-running MMOG EVE Online is the non-blockchain game with the strongest blockchain characteristics, it was little surprise the studio announced EVE Frontier, a standalone, fully onchain PC title set within the wider EVE universe. Backed by a $40 million investment, the project is iterating its way to a planned late-2026 launch. The process is a series of three-month cycles that add functionality, always ending with a hard reset that wipes the universe of all assets. The only persistent progression is player reputation, which is embodied in the game’s Grace system. This demonstrates that CCP is prioritizing social capital over degen incentives. However, the rationale for building EVE Frontier as a blockchain game extends beyond the game itself. Indeed, it is better understood as an existential move. Combining CCP’s fully open-sourced Carbon development tools with decentralized infrastructure built on the Sui blockchain means all users have equal access to create on top of this universe’s rules. In effect, EVE Frontier is an attempt to create a rich digital world capable of hosting real-world value, in which everyone has access to the god mode traditionally reserved for developers. Add support for AI agents into that mix, and the experiment’s disruptive potential becomes difficult to overstate.
3. Yield Guild Games
Many blockchain projects have been forced to confront the collapse of their business assumptions over the past year. Few, however, have pivoted as cleanly as Yield Guild Games. In the wake of the decline of its play-to-earn and guild-as-protocol models, the company has repositioned itself around a “casual degen” thesis: simple games built around high-variance crypto outcomes. Launching its new division, YGG Play, the company released browser-based title LOL Land, which has generated $5 million in USDC revenue. Encouraged by the reception, YGG doubled down on the strategy with the launch of the LOL token, which underpins a broader launchpad for similar high-risk, high-reward casual games. Beyond first-party development, YGG Play is also working with established third-party teams such as Gigaverse and Delabs Games to expand the model into a wider ecosystem. In doing so, it appears to have identified a viable risk-reward sweet spot for a specific class of deep-pocketed players. The interesting question for future growth is just how wide that spot is and how deep those pockets really are.
2. Wemade
Most major South Korean game companies have announced blockchain initiatives, but five years on, few are still actively implementing the technology. Only Wemade has regularly embedded it across its games portfolio. Launched with a 2021 update to MMORPG Mir4, Wemade then formalized its blockchain strategy within its WEMIX platform. Initially, it attempted to go wide and shallow, retrofitting dozens of existing web2 mobile titles with their own tokens. This totally failed, adding complexity but not raising engagement. Sensibly, Wemade pulled the plug and instead focused on adding a blockchain layer to improve retention and engagement for its biggest games’ most committed players. This shift is evident in successive releases such as Night Crows, ROM: Golden Age and Legend of Ymir, with each seeing progressively deeper onchain integration. One particular demonstration of this approach is Wemade’s experiment, which enables players or guilds to buy and run their own custom servers in Legend of Ymir, taking a cut of their servers’ economies. The complexity of these new business models hasn’t come without controversy, however. In particular, the delisting of the WEMIX token from South Korean exchanges, which highlighted the country’s unusually strict crypto regime and concerns around issuer disclosure, generated bad headlines and forced selling. This also had a significant impact on the WEMIX token price. Nevertheless, despite such setbacks, Wemade’s continued commitment demonstrates its belief that, over the long term, player-owned assets can support stronger player engagement and increased business results.
1. Nexpace
Funded with $100 million of capital from Nexon, Abu Dhabi-based web3 game developer Nexpace has demonstrated an outstanding level of ambition and technical expertise, successfully releasing its Avalanche-based Henesys blockchain, NXPC token and its PC MMORPG MapleStory N in 2025. Based on Nexon’s long-running and much-loved pixel IP, the game is designed to appeal to long-established players as well as to an audience curious about features such as player-owned characters and gear that can be traded on the game’s NFT marketplace. Of course, launches of such complexity do not happen without challenges. Nexpace has been public about its commitment to stamp down on behavior that impacts in-game fairness and economic well-being. Around 2 million legitimate accounts have been created, with another 600,000 banned for various issues, ranging from botting to running in-game macros to more serious attempts to circumvent financial and legal restrictions. The company has also reinforced its discipline with the start of quarterly token burns, taking 20% of its fees out of circulation.
And yet, MapleStory N is only the start of the plan. Under the banner of MapleStory Universe, Nexpace is rolling out a full ecosystem strategy. This will enable third-party developers to build their own apps and games using its existing assets, also allowing creators and other groups to unlock new business opportunities. As stated, overall success won’t be primarily about the number of players or the revenue MapleStory N generates, but the depth of the ecosystem it enables. This is further underlined by support for Chainlink, which has expanded the project into a multichain ecosystem that Nexpace now formally describes as its “Infinite IP Playground”.
Ambition, of course, is hardly in short supply across the web3 sector, where few companies fail to extol their hyperbole. What distinguishes Nexpace is that it has paired ambition with tangible progress toward its stated goals; a combination that remains extremely rare in blockchain gaming.
Check out the rundown from previous years below.
- Top 50 blockchain games of 2025
- Top 50 blockchain games of 2024
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