Immutable’s Gods Unchained launches on Epic Games Store

The announcement comes after Web3 publishers have become increasingly frustrated with Steam’s ban on blockchain-oriented games.
The announcement comes after Web3 publishers have become increasingly frustrated with Steam’s ban on blockchain-oriented games.

Immutable Games’ Web3 trading card game Gods Unchained is now listed on the Epic Games Store and is available to its 230 million customers, according to a June 21 announcement.

Gods Unchained is a collectible trading card game similar to Hearthstone or Magic: The Gathering Arena but with cards players can own and trade. Each card is represented by a nonfungible token (NFT) on the Ethereum layer-2 network Immutable X. The game was released in June 2019 and grew its player base over the next two years to reach 80,000 weekly active players in January 2022.

The Epic Games Store is a digital game distribution platform similar to Steam or GOG.com. Over 230 million PC gamers use Epic Games to find new games to play, according to the developer’s “2022 Year in Review” post from March.

Epic Games Store homepage. Source: Epic Games

Daniel Paez, executive producer of Gods Unchained, sees the Epic Games listing as a pivotal moment in the game’s history. “It is hard to overestimate the significance of Gods Unchained’s launch on Epic Games Store, one of the largest PC gaming platforms in the world,” he stated. “We are extremely excited to present our game to a completely new and truly massive audience of traditional PC gamers and TCG enthusiasts.”

Related: What are Web3 games, and how do they work?

The listing comes at a time when Web3 publishers continue to counter hostile actions from Steam, the world’s largest PC game distributor. In October 2021, Steam announced that Web3 games were not welcome on its platform while also delisting Age of Rust due to the perks the game offered to holders of its NFTs.

In March, former MetaMask team members released a rival distribution platform called Hyperplay to combat Steam’s action. Hyperplay provides access to the Epic Games and GOG.com stores from within its interface and offers its own list of Web3 titles. On June 8, the Hyperplay team raised $12 million to further the platform’s development and expand its reach.