If you’ve been around the Enjin community long enough, you may have heard of a certain game called Age of Rust.
It was set to become the first of its kind: a blockchain game made with AAA graphics, a deep and dedicated story mode, smart puzzles and a universe filled with treasured NFTs. It was set to release on Steam back in May 2021. Initially, the beta showed up in the game platform until Steam decided to remove all blockchain-related games as of October 2021. While this pulled back the potential growth of the FPS shooter within the gaming community, developer SpacePirate Games is still keen on making this game grow and become popular.
In this topic, we will take a look at Age of Rust and how it was supposed to be the blockbuster blockchain game of 2021. What does the future hold for the game in 2022 and beyond? Let’s find out.
Also, this article is not financial advice.
What is Age of Rust?
Age of Rust is a first-person shooter and puzzle game hybrid by indie studio SpacePirate Games and combines blockchain technology with a massive story in an epic world, following the format similar to Fallout, The Legend of Zelda, Deus Ex, and Tomb Raider. It was built using Solidity on Ethereum’s blockchain and uses the Enjin platform for its in-game items.
In Age of Rust, players explore a dystopian future where robots have taken over all human roles as the dominant species. As a result, the last remaining humans are on the verge of extinction as they struggle to survive.
There’s a particular focus on cryptocurrency and blockchain technology throughout the game world with references to different cryptocurrencies and token types, including characters who are experts in NFTs.
Age of Rust also promises to be an action-based role-playing game with unique puzzles that players need to solve to progress through the game. Puzzles will require you to search rooms using different items, collect characters and trade tokens on the blockchain.
Players can also buy, sell and trade their in-game assets using decentralized marketplaces or operating through a third party site.
The game uses Enjin’s platform to integrate NFTs into the gameplay experience, including individual characters with their attributes, items that unlock doors and special buildings associated with specific NPCs. If desired, these can be stored within your digital wallet for future use or transferred to other players.
Gameplay
When starting a new game in Age of Rust, you’ll be given a map with several room names to explore. Each has its own unique description and hint. For example, one might give you the first clue to solving a riddle after opening up an empty treasure chest, while another might point out the location of the next one. The first thing you’ll notice is that your character can walk around the game, taking action in various rooms.
There are also other characters in the game to interact with. These include friendly human guards who will assist you on your journey, hostile robots that want to stop you, and non-player characters (NPCs) that provide important clues or additional tasks.
To complete a quest, you’ll need to use items from your inventory that you collect during gameplay. For example, the map might hint at a certain number of cubes to use as a code or colored sequences to unlock something special.
These quests are divided into three paths: action, adventure and puzzle. Each path consists of a minimum of about five quests that are included in the quest trunk. This ensures that completionist players will not exhaust all possible combinations with a single log, but rather have three different paths that they can follow.
Action Path
The action path primarily consists of combat situations where you’ll need certain weapons at your disposal. By using them properly, you’ll be able to complete the given tasks and advance through this path.
Adventure Path
The adventure path is more focused on critical thinking challenges and quests that require a keen sense of observation and puzzle-solving skills. You’ll need to use your imagination, memory or logical reasoning to solve the problems presented in this branch.
Puzzle Path
The final branch is the puzzle path. This contains more difficult puzzles beyond simple memory recall or logical reasoning and often require you to have certain items, knowledge or skills. You’ll need to take advantage of all your acquired abilities when attempting these quests. You may also need certain NFT items to advance through the puzzles.
General Mechanics
NFTs are used for all in-game items and characters. This means that you can own a unique piece of the game, represented as a digital asset on the blockchain. When you find a new item or character during your questing experience, it will automatically register itself to your account.
For example, collecting an empty chest during gameplay would go to your inventory as an NFT. Then, if you come across a full version of this chest later on, it can be sent back to your account and will appear in your inventory as such. This is how you “unlock” each item or character by transferring them from the trunk into your inventory.
Once an NFT has been unlocked, you can use it to complete a quest. For example, you might need to use ten empty chests to open a locked door.
If you’ve collected the correct NFTs for this particular puzzle and placed them in your inventory, the door will automatically unlock and allow you access. Of course, you no longer need these items after opening this first door, but you can use them to solve a different puzzle in a future quest.
NFT Mechanics
Each NFT has various attributes to make each one unique. These include the type, age, rarity and value of each asset. For instance, one might be an ultra-rare piece from the far future while another simply came from the pre-apocalypse.
There are also five different types of NFTs in the game: character, item, building, vehicle and room.
Every character is an individual NFT with their appearance and unique randomly generated attributes. When you come across a new character during gameplay, it will automatically unlock in your inventory after collecting it.
Items are the second sub-type of NFTs that you can collect during gameplay. These represent tools, weapons or other objects that you can use to solve certain puzzles. As with characters, these items will automatically unlock in your inventory after collecting them.
Building assets are unique representations of specific structures and architecture found throughout the game world. These also represent different NPCs you can come across, from a trading caravan to a hotel.
These building assets will automatically unlock in your inventory like characters and items after collecting them.
The fourth NFT sub-type is the vehicle asset. These take the form of various land and air vehicles that you can use to travel around the game world.
These assets can be used similarly to that of building assets and characters and will unlock automatically in your inventory when collected.
Within the Age of Rust game world, some areas cannot be unlocked using traditional means such as puzzle-solving or combat. You’ll come across doorways and gates that require a specific key to unlock in these areas. In this case, you’ll need to locate a vehicle asset in order to unlock the door and proceed.
Finally, there are rooms which you can discover throughout the world. These take the form of private residences with their own unique architecture and hidden secrets inside them. When you come across a room during gameplay, it will automatically unlock your inventory.
Initial Steam Release
Supposedly, the game was set to release on Steam – the number one gaming platform for PC players. The Age of Rust beta version was released in May 2021. Those fortunate enough to find it can play the game for free, although it did not have any NFTs back then. It was a demo of how the game was going to play out and the several people who tested it quite enjoyed what it offers: engaging gameplay, an interesting story, challenging puzzles to solve and intriguing characters.
The only setback during that time was the optimization of the game. Unfortunately, it does eat up a lot of memory for an FPS-RPG with a rather old graphics engine.
Unfortunately, the game was lifted out of Steam in October 2021 – along with other crypto-related games as Steam creator Valve did not want to get involved with NFTs.
Is Age of Rust Still Playable?
After the removal from Steam, the only way you can access the game is through its official website – although if you will notice, it only has a “buy” button that doesn’t work. Assuming SpacePirate Games continue improving the game, excited players may have to wait a little longer although they did confirm a final release within the 2nd quarter of 2022.
Final Word
So, will Age of Rust reshape the future of gaming? Maybe not yet, but after the beta testing, Age of Rust has high potential. It has decent graphics, great music and sound scoring, unique gameplay, and plenty of NFTs to hunt within the post-apocalyptic universe.
It’s only a matter of time before the game might blow everyone’s expectations or bury itself in obscurity. On the other hand, suppose the NFTs implement naturally within the game without forcing players that they’re playing to earn. In that case, the gaming community might slowly accept the existence of non-fungible tokens in the future of video games.
