Pixelmon, the NFT game, makes a comeback after $70 million horrible art reveal

SNEAK PEEK

  • Pixelmon, a Web3 game project, has announced new leadership as well as development plans.
  • The project was criticized post its February artwork reveal; however, the initial creature artwork is replaced.
  • Though the rest of the artwork is upgraded, Kevin remains a blocky beast.

Pixelmon, the Ethereum-themed game project, generated $70 million via selling of NFTs that offered a Pokemon-like experience followed by revealing a ripped artwork that was not only criticized but memes were produced in abundance.  

The released artwork was called a ‘horrible mistake’ by a founder of Pixelmon. Now after several months, the project is all set for a comeback.

Pixelmon has announced a brand new leadership team along with an overhauled roadmap after the release of upgraded art, which transformed the Minecraft-based models into 3D creatures.

Developers of the project have plans of transforming the collectible NFT monsters into interoperable 3D characters to be utilized in the upcoming Pixelmon online game and in several metaverse games. The NFTs were sold for 3 ETH per piece during the initial sale.

LiquidX, a Web3 VC studio that creates NFT-themed projects, took over the development of Pixelmon, earlier this year.  The former owned a 60% stake in the project. Also, Giulio Xiloyannis, co-founder of LiquidX will be the CEO of Pixelmon.

Initially, Pixelmon had plans of releasing the game’s playable alpha test version by the end of this year. According to the roadmap, the game’s alpha testing will start in the first quarter of 2023. The roadmap features the future launch of virtual land non-fungible tokens and separate utility besides governance tokens. The entire game is due for later in 2023.

Pixelmon will provide a free-to-play mode to allow everyone to play without acquiring the monster NFTs. Another Pokemon-based NFT game, Axie Infinity, also released its free-to-play mode upon requiring non-fungible tokens to play.

Pixelmon may be putting efforts to move past its slammed launch in various ways; however, the project is embracing the memes that transformed it into an disgraceful name in the NFT ecosystem.

In February, when the artwork was launched, a monster, Kevin, won the  imagination of NFT collectors; thereby, becoming one among the highly-valued  NFTs of the project. Though the remaining  Pixelmon creature artwork has been both upgraded and repaired, Kevin’s blocky, ogre-type form has hardly been touched.