🎮 Crypto Gaming in 2025: A Wave of Shutdowns

[bonk]

Blockchain gaming was once hyped as the killer use case for Web3: own your items, trade freely, profit if the game succeeds. But in 2025, reality has been harsh. Funding shortages, small player bases, and unsustainable token models have pushed many projects to close down.

Here’s a look at some of the biggest shutdowns so far this year:

🪦 Major Closures

Deadrop (Midnight Society)
Extraction shooter, backed by Dr Disrespect (before his exit), sold NFT passes. Studio closed in Jan with just 2 days’ notice. Players now fight for refunds via chargebacks.

Ember Sword (Bright Star Studios)
Once hyped with $200M in NFT land pledges, finally shut in May. Funding dried up after multiple chain migrations.

Nyan Heroes (9 Lives Interactive)
Solana mech-cat shooter with 250k+ wishlists. Closed in May after failing to secure launch funding. Token –99% from ATH.

Realms of Alurya
Moved from Treasure to Ronin after grant funding was cut. Couldn’t finish roadmap, confirmed shutdown in June.

Symbiogenesis (Square Enix)
Blockchain art/fantasy project ended by design in July — unlike others, this was a planned conclusion.

The Mystery Society
Polygon → Immutable social/mystery game. Suspended in Feb after failing to secure more than its $3M raise.

Raini: The Lords of Light (Raini Studios)
Hearthstone-style NFT card game with crypto culture references (SBF, Elon, Doge). Ended July; studio pivots to new action games with deflationary tokenomics.

The Walking Dead: Empires (Gala Games)
AMC-licensed zombie MMORPG. Shut July 31. Players to receive “mystery box” NFTs from other Gala titles.

MetalCore (Studio 369)
Ethereum → Solana mech shooter. Servers + Discord shut in March; devs moved on to new, non-crypto game Noble Legacy.

Blast Royale
Mobile battle royale. Closed June, but code was open-sourced for the community. Token still trades but –99% from ATH.

Mojo Melee (Planet Mojo)
NFT auto-battler (Teamfight Tactics style). Closed July 1 as studio pivots to AI projects.

OpenSeason (Fractional Uprising)
Meme-filled Fortnite-style BR. Servers pulled in July due to costs + token drama. Team now runs a crypto gambling game.

Tokyo Beast
Launched June 9, dead by Aug 24. Devs promise NFT + token compensation.

Pirate Nation (Proof of Play)
Fully on-chain RPG, lived ~2 years. Shut down Aug due to high costs & small player base. Team shifting to smaller bite-sized games.

Why So Many Deaths?

Funding crunch: VC appetite is gone, token sales don’t sustain multi-year dev.

Small audiences: Games couldn’t break into mainstream gaming.

High costs: Server + development costs dwarf active revenues.

Tokenomics burnout: Many in-game tokens fell –90% to –99%, killing incentive loops.

The Big Picture

Not all is doom:

Some titles like Gunzilla’s Off the Grid are breaking into mainstream before token launch.

Web3 elements may need to be backseat features, not the selling point.

Survivors will likely be those who build fun-first games with sustainable economies.

Takeaway

2025 is showing that crypto gaming isn’t dead — but the hype bubble has burst hard. The experiments are being culled, and only the most resilient or fun-first games will survive the cycle.

As one dev put it:

“Greed and stupidity from just about all players is killing the space before it can prove itself.”

[Nahid10]

Sad but true — most Web3 games were built on hype, not fun. Without real gameplay loops, tokenomics alone couldn’t sustain them. The survivors will be studios that treat crypto as a layer, not the core pitch. Fun first, chain second.

[jacson4]

This is a healthy reset for the space. The bubble needed to pop so only serious builders remain. Gunzilla and others proving “game first, token later” might be the model that finally brings mainstream adoption to Web3 gaming.