MetalCore Review: Teched-Up Shooter In 2024
In the highly saturated market of shooter games, MetalCore has been proving overly ambitious in bringing the action-driven shooter experience on the blockchain. Despite rather wan expectations associated with many up-and-coming Web3 games, MetalCore lures players with much more convincing appeal.
In a single sentence, MetalCore could be wrapped up as a futuristic, post-apocalypse-themed, Free-to-Play (F2P), Play-to-Earn (P2E), First-Person Shooter (FPS) and vehicular combat Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) game. Developed by Studio 369, this MetalCore is already two years into its development journey and since then, its appeal earned the game a prestige of the 2022’s GAM3 award for the best shooter in the Web3 space. Impressive? Let’s look at what this hard-hitting shooter entails.
MetalCore lore – a deep dive into entropy
In MetalCore, players delve into a richly detailed alien world abundant in minerals. The gameplay is fiercely competitive, involving four factions locked in a struggle to secure as many resources as possible. Players can craft vehicles and giant battle machines, scavenge for resources, upgrade their gear, and fight in the name of their faction in both PvE and PvP MMO battles.
The game operates on a dynamic battle arena, always bustling with activity. Each player has a set number of respawns, and once these are used up, they are replaced by another player in the queue. The battles involve up to 100 players (50 vs 50), making the conflict feel like a full-scale war, complete with graphics quality that highlight MetalCore’s AAA affinity, showcasing heavy blasters, tanks, mechs, and aircraft clashing in intense combat.
Game Mechanics and Game Modes
In MetalCore, players engage in both PvE and PvP combat, choosing from three factions: Metal Punks, Gearbreakers, and The Holy Corporation. The game starts with ground trooper combat against PvE enemies in an open-world sandbox. Upon reaching Level 4, players can join Faction Wars, large-scale PvP battles for control of the world map.
The Faction Wars
Each faction offers unique bonuses and passive benefits. Through combat, players earn in-game rewards and level up, gaining access to a variety of customizable war machines like mechs, tanks, jets, and scouts, each with special abilities like jump jets and optical stealth. These machines are central to gaining strategic advantages in Faction Wars.
Barony System
The game also features a Barony System, allowing players to form guilds for team PvE challenges and coordinated PvP battles. Faction War, the heart of the game, is a zone-based PvP conflict where players aim to control the open world before the mode timer ends, combining FPS modes like base defense and domination.
Tactical points in battle zones offer bonuses and are crucial for victory. Players have a limited number of lives in each battle zone, and once depleted, they must re-queue for battle. Vehicles play a key role, being susceptible to damage but repairable, and can be customized with skins, decals, and upgrades.
NFT implementation in gameplay
Players own their in-game assets as NFTs, including characters, vehicles, and land. These NFTs provide unique bonuses and can be traded or rented. The game emphasizes strategic gameplay, team coordination, and extensive customization, offering a unique blend of FPS and MMO elements with blockchain integration.
How does the gameplay mirror MetalCore’s ambitions?
To start with, it’s important to emphasize that MetalCore is still under intense development and the publicly accessible Alpha test, quite obviously, doesn’t cater to the full extent of final vision the team behind MetalCore fosters.
Tokenomics overview
And how about the token? There’s none yet. However, MetalCore is poised at the dual-token economy, revolving around two tokens, MTP – a governance token – and FAB – a utility token. Let’s see the future expectations of this token dichotomy.
MTP (Metalcore Token)
MTP is going to be the governance token of the MetalCore ecosystem. It serves as the primary currency for voting on proposals that impact the game’s development and direction. Players can earn MTP by participating in various in-game activities, such as completing quests, defeating enemies, and trading NFTs. MTP can also be used to purchase in-game items, such as upgrades, skins, and other accessories.
FAB (Faction Ability Token)
FAB is going to be a utility token that is primarily used for upgrading and enhancing BattleMechs, the customizable mechs that players control in the game. Players can earn FAB by participating in faction-based activities, such as capturing control points, defending territory, and completing faction quests. FAB can also be used to rent BattleMechs from other players, providing a passive income stream for those who own valuable mechs.
The Role of NFTs
MetalCore utilizes non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to represent BattleMechs and other in-game items. NFTs provide players with ownership and control over their digital assets, allowing them to trade, rent, or lend them to other players. This aspect of the game adds a layer of value and replayability, as players can build their own mech collections and experiment with different strategies.
MetalCore’s dual token challenges
The overall token economy of MetalCore is designed to promote player engagement and reward participation in various activities. By using MTP for governance and FAB for upgrading and enhancing BattleMechs, the game encourages players to invest in the ecosystem and contribute to its growth. The use of two distinct tokens also helps to separate the governance aspect of the game from the core gameplay elements.
As MetalCore continues to develop, the team plans to introduce additional features and game modes that will further enhance the tokenomics system. These features could include staking mechanisms, token burning mechanisms, and integration with other blockchain platforms. The potential for these developments is significant, as they could further increase the value proposition of both MTP and FAB tokens.
Only time will tell how well MTP and FAB will perform, yet no tokenomics is resistant to potential pitfalls. Striking the right balance in the utility and value of each token can be challenging. If one token becomes significantly more valuable or useful than the other, it might destabilize the ecosystem. For example, if the governance token is perceived to be more valuable, users might neglect the utility token, adversely affecting the ecosystem’s functionality.
In practice, because of these different uses, the prices of these tokens can change a lot and be quite unpredictable. Utility tokens change in price based on how popular or in-demand the project’s services are. Governance tokens, however, might see their prices go up and down because people are speculating – they’re buying and selling based on guesses about the project’s future, not just its current use.