“I won’t be the typical CEO that you think you want. But I promise, I will not stop, we will not stop, and 2023 will be our year.”
Illuvium co-founder Kieran Warwick has been working alongside his brother and Synthetix creator Kain Warwick for quite some time now. Having been exposed to Bitcoin and Ethereum early on, Kieran invested a considerable chunk of his savings in ETH in 2016.
When investing didn’t pan out, Kieran thought he was done with crypto and focused on other endeavors. He joined Blueshyft, where he started the first over-the-counter cryptocurrency exchange and later helped The Burger Collective succeed.
Kieran’s assets took a hit during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, so Kain encouraged him to dabble in cryptocurrency again — and lent him $100,000 to do so. Kieran started trading right before the bull run and made a lot of money.
Around this time, he discovered NFT gaming and started ideating Illuvium with Kain and two other brothers working in tech, Aaron and Grant. Aaron was a game designer, and Grant was a CGI modeler, so things fell into place for the team.
Kieran’s Illuvium game built a following in 2022, gathering over 350,000 Twitter followers and 200,000 Discord members. After several development delays, the Ethereum-based MMORPG finally launched its Overworlds Private Beta on Dec. 12.
Players explore futuristic game environments and capture NFT creatures called “Illuvials.” They can also go on quests, purchase in-game items and trade NFTs. Enhancements, such as using a teleporter or jetpack to move around the sci-fi-inspired metaverse, are set to be added following the Beta launch. Resources for mining and scanning were not available upon launch.
Kieran attended NFT Fest Australia in November and described Illuviam as more than an NFT game, calling it a “fun-first” game focused on user experience. “10 years from now, Illuvium players won’t call it a crypto game — they’ll just call it a fun game,” he shared.
He has also penned some of his thoughts on the crypto bear market on Twitter. “This bear market has taught me that resilience is one of the most significant traits you can have. It seems obvious, but until you build into it, you don’t know. […] We’re not through it yet, but that only makes us work harder,” he shared.
When asked about his plans for Illuvium’s move out of beta, Kieran shared that it would probably take around three months — slating the release of future iterations of the game for early 2023.
Kieran also laid out a detailed vision on Twitter, sharing elements of Illuvium’s roadmap. What’s consistent throughout his message is the reference to Illuvium as something that “isn’t just a game” but rather a collection of multiple games within a coherent universe.
This is also apparent in the blockchain game’s initial releases: Zero, Overworld and Arena. Overall, Kieran’s vision for the Illuvium universe seems to be in sync with the general direction of how the metaverse is developing, wherein players are expected to engage in a game’s social platform and “live in” a game’s world.
Kieran has remained optimistic about Web3 adoption but isn’t oblivious to the reality of the market. “When the market recovers, we will perform a mega raise, likely one of the largest in history, to ensure we have the runway to build out our 20-year vision,” he shared.
