Dear Bankless Nation,

In my previous post, I highlighted the significant impact the Immutable and Polygon alliance will have on the web3 gaming world through the Immutable zkEVM.

However, this is just scratching the surface of the many groundbreaking advancements currently taking place in Polygon's thriving corner of the NFT ecosystem.

For today’s write-up, then, let's dive deeper and explore some of these noteworthy recent developments around Polygon NFTs!

-WMP

5 Notable Recent Developments in Polygon’s NFT Scene

1. Reddit Avatar Marketplace 🫂

Reddit CEO Steve Huffman has confirmed that one of the next steps for the social media giant’s rising Polygon-based Reddit Avatar effort is to roll out a bespoke Reddit Avatar Marketplace where people can simply create, sell, and trade their own avatars.

This marketplace will still be in development for a while longer, but it’s poised to see major activity once it does launch considering how popular Reddit Avatars have been to date.

That’s because so far more than 10.6M of these NFTs have been collected across +7M holders, and the market cap for these collectibles is currently over $123M USD. That’s already really impressive stats, and the arrival of a native Reddit NFT marketplace could catalyze another big surge in these numbers as more options become available to Reddit’s community.

2. Nexon 🍄

Among the largest game publishers in the world, Nexon is a Japanese-South Korean video game company that specializes in developing and publishing online games, particularly in the massively multiplayer online (MMO) genre.

MapleStory is one of Nexon's most successful franchises, a free-to-play, 2D side-scrolling MMORPG with colorful, anime-style graphics, an expansive world, and a wide range of character classes and customization options. The game has gained a large and dedicated player base since its initial release in 2003, and now that player base will be getting acquainted with Polygon and NFTs because Nexon has announced it’s using the Polygon Supernets system to create its own customized gaming blockchain for the MapleStory Universe.

If you’re not familiar with Polygon Supernets, it’s a new scaling framework that allows projects to readily create their own customizable, high-performance “appchains.” Nexon said it chose this approach in the interest of exploring new ways to foster an open, transparent gaming ecosystem and to expand the utility of its in-game assets. It’ll be really interesting to track Nexon’s progress from here, and the major stamp of approval will likely make other gaming publishers take a closer look at Polygon as well.

3. Gotchichain 👻

Aavegotchi is one of Polygon’s oldest and most storied GameFi projects, and now the one-of-a-kind, ghost-themed NFT gaming protocol is leaping forward to Polygon’s frontier once again in having just announced plans for its own Polygon Supernets appchain.

The custom-tailored blockchain, Gotchichain, is slated to launch in Q3 2023 and will offer a new optimized home, with faster transactions and lower gas fees, for the growing Aavegotchi ecosystem of games and apps. The new chain will adopt Aavegotchi’s existing token, GHST, as its native gas token.

4. DEADDROP Snapshot V 🔫

Dr. Disrespect, streamer extraordinaire and the two-time, back-to-back 1993-1994 Blockbuster Video Game Champion, is helping to develop the first-person shooter (FPS) he wants to see in the world at his web3 gaming studio, Midnight Society.

The flagship game of Midnight Society, DEADROP, is a free-to-play extraction FPS whose NFT loot system is being built on Polygon. The game revolves around players, called Variants and Claws, battling their way through a massive tower called the Refiner State, which is filled with valuable loot. Players must cooperate or fight with others to extract safely or become the last one standing to win the ultimate prize, “The Deadrop.”

Notably, Midnight Society just launched Snapshot V, a pre-alpha test event for DEADDROP, introducing players to “Sector 3: Cold Storage,” a new area of the Refiner State. This event offers Midnight Society’s community members the ability to trial new gameplay features, weapon attachments, theatrics, and more. While the game isn’t set to fully launch until 2024, just take note that we’re likely watching the first AAA-level game being built right in front of us on Polygon in the here and now.

5. Confirmed Immutable zkEVM Games 💥

Following my previous post on the Immutable x Polygon Immutable zkEVM news announcement, we now have confirmation on the first three games that will be developed using the new layer-two (L2) scaling solution, and they are Infinite Victory, METALCORE, and Shardbound. With the impressive UX advantages that the underlying Polygon zkEVM infrastructure opens up, it’s no stretch to assume these are just the first of many more games that will be experimenting with this L2 stack going forward.