A deep dive into the five finalists for the GAM3 Awards Best Strategy Games category. Everything you need to know so you can choose your winner.
Mostafa Salem
Head of Gaming Research
Most of us grew up playing strategy games one way or another. Whether it was micromanaging all your units on Starcraft and clicking your brains out or building out full kingdoms and their armies in Age of Empires, strategy games have been around for ages and were one of the reasons why gaming grew so much in its early days. In web3 gaming, the strategy genre has its stars, and the Best Strategy category in our inaugural GAM3 Awards aims to recognize the quality titles within the genre. Let's get right into it and see what our five finalists got to offer.
Gods Unchained is one of the earliest games to adopt blockchain technology, alongside the likes of Axie Infinity and Splinterlands. The studio behind Gods Unchained wanted to change the model for card game players who are used to getting their library wiped out every time the expansion rotation happens.
Unlike Hearthstone, each god has its own list of special powers to choose from. So in a game, you can only choose one to fit your strategy against your opponent. You have to be careful about how much value that power will bring you over the course of a game. All these elements combined made Gods Unchained a perfect nominee for the Best Strategy title.
Cross The Ages is combining the best of mobile and desktop games with a blockchain-driven system that will allow users to convert their digital card collection into physical cards. It's making this possible with its near-field communication tech, or NFC for short, that will allow for fully operational trading cards on any device.
The gameplay snippets that we have seen so far provide a solid overview of how fast-paced the studio designed Cross The Ages. It doesn't just involve playing the cards in the right order to beat your opponent; the intricate affinity system ensures that you think about where the enemies are positioned, and how this will affect your hero's abilities add a lot of strategy and thought process for the players to consider before putting down each card. Cross The Ages boasts an incredibly passionate and creative team, with so much emphasis being put on fleshing out the lore of the game and building a memorable world for players to connect with while playing the game.
Skyweaver puts its players in a position to choose a champion that's been chosen by the Prisms, and have to harness energy from the Sky Source while guiding the city into a better and more prosperous future.
Skyweaver features a couple of radical game mechanics that sets it apart from other card games. Units and heroes can come carrying their own dedicated spell cards, which synergize excellently with their parent card. These attached spell cards can be detached and used separately later in the game for maximum strategic advantage. Add to that the existence of fifteen heroes to choose from, each with their own background, lore, and set of skills to choose from that specializes in a certain playstyle, and you have yourself a strong contender for the GAM3 Awards Best Strategy title.
The Immortal Game is an industry-defying game that went beyond our expectations at release. The first chess game to implement blockchain, NFTs and earning mechanics, you'll enjoy the game for what it is but also be able to keep earning and cycling back for additional rewards.
The Immortal Game is a regular chess game with an added feature: Immortal NFTs. These are digital assets representing different chess pieces with attached quests on them that players can buy, sell, and trade freely. Strategy is synonymous with chess so it only makes sense for The Immortal Game to have made it into the GAM3 Awards Best Strategy category through our jury's voting in the first round.
Cards of Ethernity is an online trading card game with a surprising amount of diversity, from the abilities of over 150 cards that are available at release to the immense number of unique keywords they offer. Depending on what type you're going for and your Adventurer's special ability and your Pet's power, your deck can play with whatever style you wish it to.
At launch, Cards of Ethernity will feature 10 Adventurers. Each one of them representing an element with the 10th being neutral to be suitable for all playstyles. Card games naturally make for a good fit within the strategy genre, and with how many moving parts Cards of Ethernity offers its players, it makes for a great nominee within the GAM3 Awards Best Strategy category.
Who do you think will walk away with the GAM3 Awards Best Strategy trophy? Which one do you enjoy playing the most? Share this article and tag us on any of our socials to let us know.