Gods Unchained is fighting for a comeback.
Despite having some of the highest Daily Active Users and one of the most active content creator communities in all of web3 gaming, people love to hate on GU.
It’s become a punching bag for up-and-coming projects to compare themselves to. “Gods Unchained? Who cares? Our game is way better!”
The narrative is way off of the reality here. Truth is, GU deserves respect.
Leading the Web3 Gaming Wave
Gods Unchained sits in a rare category of games: Games with NFTs that have utterly outperformed their peers in terms of active players and building a gamer community that continues to engage heavily with the game even now, deep in an apathetic bear market.
It’s a fantastic TCG. The balance is spectacular (see stats on gudecks dot com), the art and lore are consistent and good, and the game design is just right. Not too simple, not too complicated.
The biggest issue for Gods Unchained, unfortunately, is slow development. The last year has been very slow, with only two mini-sets released and no major new features.
Sealed Mode and Other Major Features
Which brings us to Sealed.
Sealed mode is one of the three “bullets in the chamber,” to use an analogy, for Gods Unchained. There are three new updates coming soon that have potential to bring in new players and juice up the game.
These are the only three chances that Gods Unchained has to build momentum in the next 6–12 months. There isn’t much else that will matter compared to these.
They are:
1) Sealed Mode
2) A New Full Expansion (not mini-set)
3) Mobile App Launch
In my opinion, almost nothing matters apart from these three moments. Everything else is small and relatively unimportant.
The team that builds Gods Unchained should be fully focused on these three things. These are the only three moments that are likely to drive user onboarding, hype within the web3 gaming community, and (with mobile and sealed) a chance to reach new users outside of the web3 bubble.
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SIDE NOTE: What is Sealed?
Sealed Mode is a “limited” format where you pay an entry fee, receive a temporary virtual set of cards, and build a deck out of those cards.
You aren’t buying the cards as NFTs — they disappear after the draft — so the point isn’t collecting, the point is the novel challenge of building a deck on-the-fly out of a random limited set of cards. Hence the term “limited format”
Since you use a random set of cards each time, limited formats are very different from “Constructed” formats where you bring a pre-built deck.
And yes, you win NFT booster packs and cosmetics as prizes for doing well in this mode.
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The Launch of Sealed Mode
The upcoming launch of Sealed mode on Thursday, 14th September is going to be a huge deal for Gods Unchained in one of two ways.
Either it galvanizes the community and creates a major new lane of gameplay experiences and content creation, as well as a fair competition for those who don’t have the best cards for constructed…
Or
And I don’t even want to say this,
But if Sealed flops, it’s probably the beginning of the end of hoping for Gods Unchained to reach new heights in the future. If Sealed is a flop and doesn’t gain traction, then the other two “bullets in the chamber” (Mobile and a Major New Set) are less likely to drive new users into the game.
Sealed is like the initial spark, then mobile and a new set of cards are like pouring gasoline on the fire. If Sealed fails to get a fire going, the gasoline won’t do much.
If it fails, it will create a narrative that Gods Unchained is really unable to get people excited anymore.
Conclusion
I am quite optimistic that Sealed mode will be a lot of fun and also be a great entry point for new competitive players who have a disadvantage in constructed ranked mode. There’s a good chance that lots of old players will come back to try the new format.
If all goes well, Sealed will be the beginning of a new era for Gods Unchained. An era of more features, better development, and more frequent content releases. I am very much hoping that this is the case!
If Sealed goes badly, idk, maybe games like Axie Infinity and Parallel TCG will just eat GU’s lunch. I hope not, GU is a beautiful game and an excellent example of web3 gaming done right. It deserves to be a part of the web3 gaming landscape for many years to come.
What do you think, will Sealed be a success? Are you excited?
