Seraph: The Rise of a New Star in Blockchain Gaming, the Dark World Reappears

The crypto market has experienced ups and downs, and the blockchain gaming industry has also gone through several changes, yet a truly killer product has yet to emerge. Despite numerous strong traditional game studios entering the field in an attempt to address the long-standing complaints of players regarding game quality, there are still very few playable works available. Against this backdrop, Seraph, which has garnered significant attention this year, stands out.

Seraph is a dark-themed Web3 game. In April and July of this year, the game conducted two rounds of closed beta testing, attracting a total of 30,000 registered players through collaborations with multiple player communities. The game's performance has been impressive, with a day-one retention rate of 72%, a seven-day retention rate of 45%, and an average daily playtime of 5 hours per player, which is already quite outstanding data for blockchain games. Despite both previous tests being wipe tests and only using test tokens, 55% of players still participated in on-chain transactions, with some players even investing real money through over-the-counter trading, fully reflecting the players' recognition of Seraph's quality and playability. Currently, Seraph is preparing for a third closed beta test with some assets retained, and a preheat blind box whitelist event is ongoing, giving participating players the chance to obtain high-value game assets.

Recently, a media outlet exclusively interviewed Seraph's CMO Yezi, delving into the story behind Seraph, its economic system design, recent plans, and layout opportunities.

Originating from Loot, loyal to Dark, surpassing Dark

The Seraph team has rich experience in game development, blockchain technology, and operational promotion, and has received solid financial support. Specifically:

1. Backed by strong resources: Received investment incubation from the South Korean online game giant Actoz Soft, possessing a mature product development and distribution system.

2. Game Development: The development team comes from a well-known game company, with experience in developing dark-style games dating back to 2008.

3. Blockchain Technology: Team members have experience in DeFi projects and 5 years of wallet operation and maintenance experience, ensuring wallet security and continuously optimizing user experience.

4. Web3 Market Operation: An excellent Web3 market operation team has been introduced, including several Web3 project initiators who were responsible for the early-stage operation incubation of well-known projects.

The creative inspiration for Seraph comes from the Loot project that exploded in popularity in 2021. Based on years of experience in dark development, the team believes that dark themes and blockchain games are highly compatible, allowing the rich and diverse equipment system of dark games to be integrated with NFT technology. Coupled with the unique economic circulation and trading characteristics of blockchain games, this provides players with a unique experience.

Compared to traditional dark genre games, Seraph incorporates more economic transactions and social experiences, deeply overhauling and optimizing game items, exploring the MMO direction based on traditional dark ARPG gameplay. By implementing a seasonal system and content updates, it maintains a longer lifecycle. A significant amount of content has been added to the onboarding phase, multiplayer teaming, PVP leaderboards, and the game loop involving regular users, merchants, and big spenders, enhancing the user experience.

Combining Web2 and Web3, NFT-Driven Game Economy

Seraph takes equipment as the core NFT asset, and the players' "grind" is the core game behavior that builds the gold farming loop, with plans to expand into deeper gameplay such as PFP and land GVG based on the core loop.

The core economic loop of the game is divided into two main lines:

1. Players participate in the Void Otherworld dungeon. Players wearing NFT equipment can achieve "gold farming" during the game and obtain Soul Crystals. Soul Crystals are the universal currency in the game, which can be used for trading, equipment development, and participating in the Chaos Secret Realm dungeon.

2. Players can wear NFT equipment and consume Soul Crystals to participate in the Chaos Secret Realm dungeon, with a chance to obtain rare asset drops, including new NFT equipment.

The third dungeon gameplay of the game is leaderboard PVP, which stimulates big spenders to acquire a large number of low-level NFT equipment in the market to enhance their own gear, in order to achieve a higher ranking and substantial rewards. These rewards will be deeply tied to on-chain assets associated with game development.

For free players in Web2, they can enjoy an almost indistinguishable gaming experience while having the opportunity to earn additional rewards through the in-game economic cycle. Paying players can purchase NFT equipment through a convenient wallet, transitioning into Web3 players.

The third round of testing without data deletion is approaching, and the blind box white list activity is ready to launch.

In conjunction with the upcoming sale of the third test blind boxes, Seraph will reopen the white list distribution activity. The team places special emphasis on early supporters, including SPP NFT holders and players who participated in the first two rounds of internal testing. SPP holders are defined as early co-builders and incubators, and will receive various benefits and rewards from time to time. Players who participated in the first two tests will also receive bonus points for obtaining a white list in the upcoming sale of the third test blind boxes.

In the third test, some assets will not be deleted, and players will have the opportunity to obtain game shards. Collecting these shards will allow players to synthesize limited edition dark gold equipment NFTs from the Unique NFT series. Except for the presale of the Genesis part, the remaining bright gold NFTs will be produced by players after the official launch of the game.

Seraph has basically completed the main content development, including three major professions and core dungeon gameplay. New content and gameplay are currently being developed, such as the Necromancer and Druid as two new professions. New features such as skins, footprints, and automatic pet looting will be added in the third test.

The future roadmap includes the launch of the Steam version, new professions, a mercenary system, PVP gameplay, guilds, and other social elements, as well as new content such as seasonal themes and achievements. In terms of Web3 elements, the PFP series will also meet players.

The Seraph team is committed to creating a game that bridges the gap between Web2 and Web3, contributing to the large-scale application of blockchain. They believe that a good blockchain game can weather the bull and bear markets, even attracting funds from outside the industry and bringing new opportunities to the market.