Top 5 Play-2-Earn Games of 2023 to Look Into

Web3 gaming is rapidly growing due to the new and highly popular play-to-earn (P2E) model. While it's not yet comparable to web2 gaming, this concept allows people to earn an income while playing and having fun in a virtual metaverse.

This revolution has spurred many web2 developers to look into non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and their strong appeal to gamers, collectors, and crypto enthusiasts.

Below are the most promising and popular P2E NFT games of 2022 that you should consider playing this year and beyond.

Planet IX

Planet IX is an NFT-based, P2E game taking place in the year 2539 on a barren, desolate, post-apocalyptic Earth. The players are human Agents of Change (AOC) returning to the planet, guided by their habitat-searching AI, in an attempt to rebuild it to its former glory. Gamers will encounter a mysterious world with rich lore ready to be explored.

This web3 Metaverse game runs on Polygon and features over 1.7 billion hexagonal virtual land plots, or PIX. Each parcel is an ERC-721 NFT token allowing its owner to trade, store, and grow. Players can buy and sell PIX at the in-game marketplace or gain from in-game raffles. Ultimately, the goal of every player is to group these good rarity PIX NFTs into adjacent Territories and stake them for $IXT rewards. The more PIX plots they have, the larger the Territories, and the higher the staking rewards will be.

$IXT is Planet IX’s ERC-20 IX cryptocurrency. Players can use it for in-game transactions or interact with the in-game corporations. The latter are in-game entities created to help the Earth’s decolonization. Also, each corporation provides various services, including an NFT marketplace, weekly drops, raffles, and waste management.

Players can use $IXT to develop their PIX lands with energy-generating facilities and drones as they accumulate resources. Like all in-game assets, these upgrades are NFTs with true ownership that help increase resource generation and income. 

Moreover, they can purchase meta-shares in the corporations to gain governance rights and influence the game's development. Alternatively, players can raid and steal others’ resources. This is part of a larger strategy from the team to introduce advanced PVP mechanics to the game. The game lets players decide how to expand their influence and increase their income.

With 50,000+ monthly players, Planet IX is among the top gaming projects with the best social signal on Polygon. Furthermore, it has over 300,000 connected wallets and up to 25,000 weekly players. The game’s weekly cargo drops, raffles, and rewards will attract even more players in the long run as it grows into one of the top P2E web3 games in 2022 and beyond.

Alien Worlds

Alien Worlds is a free-to-play NFT game running on three of the most popular blockchain networks, Ethereum, Wax, and the BNB Chain. It launched in 2021 as a tokenized Metaverse where players can travel, explore extraterrestrial realms, and participate in challenges and missions.

While anyone can join Alien Worlds for free, players must purchase the game's native token, Trillium (TLM), to complete tasks. This BEP-20 token fuels the entire ecosystem in Alien Worlds, allowing holders to buy weapons, upgrades, spaceships, and mining equipment, all in the form of NFTs. It’s worth noting the token runs on all three blockchains the game is on, but players need a Wax Cloud wallet to purchase it.

In terms of gameplay, Alien Worlds has a mission-based format with various time frames. Players have to stake TLM tokens to enter missions. All the staked tokens go to a reward tool, which redistributes earnings at every mission’s end.

The game features 300 different, and rare NFTs players can collect, buy, sell, and trade. Earning or purchasing NFT cards can alter missions and trigger various lore elements in the Alien Worlds metaverse, thus leading to additional rewards. In fact, this virtual world contains so many scenarios and variables that it may generate unique gameplay situations.

Token holders can also stake $TLM to vote in the game’s planetary elections or to increase the reward pool. Every planet in Alien Worlds functions as a DAO (decentralized autonomous organization), allowing players to participate in weekly elections or to run for a spot in the council. Moreover, staking tokens will enable them to table proposals, vote on them, and have a say in the fate of their planet’s treasury funds.

Lastly, Alien Worlds provides several P2E tools, such as mining, staking, leasing in-game assets, and fighting other players.

Gods Unchained

Another entry in our top-5 play-2-earn games of 2022 is Gods Unchained, an NFT trading card game on the Ethereum blockchain and the brainchild of Nick Clay. Expert gamers may know this industry-famous developer as the director of the popular game Magic: The Gathering Arena.

Similar to “Magic…”, Gods Unchained is an engaging card game placing collectors in PvP (player-vs-player) battles with potentially high rewards. While they may hold different cards, all players share the same goal - build a solid deck and defeat as many other players as possible.

Some have likened Gods Unchained to the popular card game Hearthstone. However, this game is slightly more challenging and addictive. Its appeal comes from the precious NFT available in four card types - Rare, Epic, Legendary, and Shiny. Each card is unique and tradable on Immutable X Marketplace.

Gods Unchained is free to play for everyone. It has 3 game modes, Solo, Ranked, and Direct Challenge, which is the classic PvP match. Playing and winning matches comes with EXP rewards, which enable players to access new cards and upgrade their skills. Also, finishing an in-game level gives them a pack of cards to open, increasing the chances of finding a super-rare NFT card.

Gods Unchained has a proprietary token, GODS, enabling players to stake their assets and earn more rewards. Crypto enthusiasts who are less into gaming can purchase GODS tokens on Coinbase and stake them into the game. This way, they don't have to participate in any play mode and still earn a passive income. Moreover, they help the game’s economy develop faster.

Lastly, Gods Unchained offers different ways to earn through gaming and beyond. For example, it has its own marketplace where users can sell their NFT cards.

Derace

The last P2E NFT game on our list is Derace, an NFT horse racing metaverse where players can participate in horse races and breed NFT horses with unique characteristics. Moreover, they can build their own NFT hippodrome and gain rewards through the game’s P2E mechanism.

Derace aims to combine people's age-old interest in horse racing with their newfound passions for NFT collecting and web3 gaming. The game simulates real-life horse racing and offers a lively horse racing experience. Furthermore, it uses blockchain-based architecture to create a fully decentralized crypto gaming platform with betting and P2E features.

Almost every component of the Derace Metaverse is a non-fungible token (NFT), including horses, hippodromes, and equipment upgrades. Players can race and breed NFT horses, upgrade, and gamble on them in various contests. This way, they can gain several rewards, amassing into a sustainable income.

Derace employs a highly realistic design and a horse racing simulator to keep the game fun and functional. Players can take on various roles in this virtual world, such as horse owners, bookmakers, hippodrome owners, or gamblers. Each option has its own perks and earning possibilities.

Breeding allows token owners to create new horse NFTs with different looks, cool-down times, and specs for stamina and speed. Meanwhile, hippodrome owners can host races, bettors can place wagers on horses, and bookmakers can oversee them.

Derace has a proprietary ERC-20 token, DERC, which fuels all the transactions on the site, including entrance fees, awards, NFT sales, and rewards. Players can swap their DERC tokens for other cryptocurrencies on various exchange platforms. Alternatively, they can use them to buy new NFT horses, breed them, or stage in-game races.

Derace promises a transparent, fair, and secure experience for all its players, whether they are in it for betting or only for the thrill of the race.

Parallel

Parallel is a sci-fi “trading card game” (TCG) on the Ethereum blockchain, allowing players to explore and acquire assets from a unique NFT card collection. The game launched in 2021 and quickly gained massive community support due to the popularity of its first pack drop. Additionally, it surfaced in the market when NFTs were hogging the crypto spotlight. The game is still popular today, amassing over 20,000 dedicated players.

The game takes place in the distant future when Earth's population has depleted the planet of all its resources. Since life became impossible on Earth, the few remaining survivors split into five factions and fled to nearby planets and asteroids, thus becoming Parallels.

In a few millennia, humans reached new technological heights on their new planet homes. This enabled them to return to Earth, only to find it had regenerated into a resource-rich planet. Now, the five Parallel factions battle to gain control of the planet and harvest its resources responsibly. Players must choose a faction and join the fight for the new Earth.

Parallel’s gameplay features plenty of card unpacking and collecting. The game's drop system diminishes the risk of speculators accumulating too many NFT cards. So far, Parallel is famous for selling one of its NFT cards, “Masterpiece,” for $1.1 million worth of ETH.

The game takes a 10% fee on NFT sales and distributes half among in-game prize pools. Meanwhile, the rest goes toward the company's development. Currently, Parallel is in action, with the most probable beta release occurring in 2023. Until then, players can build a complete card deck, which is mandatory for accessing the game. To this end, they should keep an eye out for pack drops from developers.