Overview

Shrapnel is an upcoming web-based first-person shooter game. The team behind the project consists of veterans from the gaming world. Shrapnel’s unique lore, AAA graphics, and web3 primitives like tradeable in-game assets might just make it the best web3 FPS once it releases. That’ll be a pretty difficult feat to achieve considering that we already have some flawless titles like EV.IO. Other than straight-forward combat, the game also gives players the opportunity to create their own content or curate the stuff created by other players.

Shrapnel's Lore 

In the Shrapnel-verse, a huge asteroid strikes the moon, causing lunar rocks to bombard a 500-kilometer-wide band on Earth. This area has now become unlivable for common people due to the constant meteorite drops. Citizens have named it the "Sacrifice Zone," as entering it is akin to sacrificing your own life. However, a group of specially trained personnel from the Mercenary Extraction Forces willingly enter the area to collect the valuable 38 Sigma rocks.

Nobody knows what the mysterious elements extracted from the rocks are used for. Some speculate that the rare material called compound sigma inexplicably allows quantum mechanics to manifest in the world of classical physics. Well, this is where the developers lost us in lore; let’s get back to the gameplay style.

It's a high-stakes extraction mission where falling meteorites are not the worst thing you can find, but other highly trained men with weapons are trying to gain the same loot as you do.

Shrapnel has three primary operator classes: Assault, Survivalist, and Infosec.As you might expect, each class has its own strengths and weaknesses. Choose the one that most suits your playing style. Players start off with base stats in their chosen Operator class, which they can upgrade by gaining experience (XP) points. As the player climbs up the skill tree by earning more XP, they can unlock new abilities and weapons for their operator. For risk-averse players, there is also a temporary Operator class (Guest mode) that allows for lower risk-reward gameplay.

Gameplay

Extraction

In the game, players have only one objective: to enter the zone as an operator for one of the MEFs and extract valuable items (38 Sigma crystals). However, it’s not as easy as it sounds because every other player in the game is also trying to do the same. This results in a high-stakes showdown between the players, where they fight to the death and the winner takes it all. Players can customize their weapon set and other equipment to suit their playing style. If you fancy yourself as a silent assassin, consider carrying snipers, pistols with silencers, and a combat knife; if you’re more of a guns-blazing kind of shooter, we’ll recommend assault rifles and sawed-off shotguns. Just keep this in mind: if you die in the zone, you’ll lose all your weapon NFTs. We told you the stakes were too high in this one.

Once players successfully capture a loot package, they’ll head to an extraction site. The catch is that if any of the players successfully stop them, i.e., kill them before they make their escape, the loot is lost. If the player manages to make a successful extraction, the loot package is saved as an NFT in their inventory, which they can use to buy in-game items (weapons, skins, and equipment).

Gear and crafting

The way players gain a tactical edge in the game is by getting more advanced weapons, equipment, and abilities than their opponents. The straightforward way to get these desired items is to complete a bunch of successful extractions. However, the game also allows players to craft their own weapons and other gear. This can range from dependable guns used by contract operators to high-tech weapons carried by corporate MEF officers. While there’s not enough information out there yet about weapon crafting in Shrapnel, we do know that players can mix and match complementary items to increase their strength. The developers will release more information as the game nears its launch.

Player-created tournaments and missions

Weapons are not the only things that you can create with shrapnel. The game will also allow players to host their own tournaments. You get to enforce your own rule set if you organize a tournament. It’ll be kind of like hosting your own Hunger Games, but much cooler. We don’t know the details yet, but surely organizing successful events can be very profitable for enterprising players and guilds. However, you’ll probably need some practice before you host a global competition. Don't worry, start off by creating unique missions in the game with different rewards. Yes, you read correctly. Players can also design their own missions, but the range of options is not unlimited.

GOVERNANCE (DAO) 

Staying true to the Web3 ethos, Shrapnel aims to be a decentralized game and outsource all the decision-making power to its community of players and investors. This will be achieved through token distribution (but we discuss that in the later part of this article). Just know that the players would be able to vote on crucial aspects of the game such as design, the future roadmap, aesthetics, in-game item creation, etc. According to their whitepaper, players who engage more with the game will have more voting power compared to passive stakeholders.

REPUTATION SYSTEM

The game also features a reputation system wherein you earn karma points based on your participation in the game’s ecosystem. Your reputation score within the game primarily depends on your performance in three areas: play, creation, and community. If you want to unlock new mods or receive in-game boosts, try to maximize your performance in these areas. Other advantages of having a higher reputation in the ecosystem include the fact that your own generated content will be much more discoverable than that of other players.

Economy

Shrap is the official token of the Shrapnel economy. Some of the use cases for the token are

Governance

If you want to participate in the governance of the game, you’ll need to hold the Shrap token. Essentially, the token gives you voting rights in the ecosystem.

Running Validators

The token will be used to make payments to the node operators (validators). While the Shrapnel protocol will bear these fees, the payment will still be made in Shrap tokens. You could also stake shrap on validator nodes.

Minting and Medium of Exchange

Shrap will be your primary means of exchange within the game’s economy. You’ll use it to buy game assets and other user-generated content. Also, it’s the native currency of the game's official marketplace.

Rewards 

Rewards for player-generated content will be paid out in shrapnel.

TOKENOMICS 

SHRAP will be issued as an ERC-20 token and deployed on Avalanche shortly afterward. At the token genesis event (TGE), 3 billion SHRAP tokens will be created as the total token supply, which will never increase. No other tradable tokens are anticipated to be created or minted. SHRAP tokens will be distributed and unlocked as follows:

Shrap will be minted as an ERC-20 token, and then it’ll be deployed on the Avalanche blockchain. The move to Avalanche is likely to give users a more affordable and faster experience. According to the white paper, Shrap’s supply will be capped at 3 billion tokens at Genesis. There are no plans to introduce any new tokens or increase this supply at the moment. Let’s look at the token distribution of Shrap.

Tokens are reserved for:

1. Community Rewards: 33%
2. Team and Advisors: 27%
3. Seed Round: 20%
4. Holders of strategic tokens: 7%
5. Public Sale: 5%
6. Market Making and Liquidity: 3%
7. Ecosystem fund: 5%

Shrapnel Marketplace

The developers are designing an order book-style peer-to-peer marketplace for the game. wherein buyers and sellers can trade in-game items without any intermediary facilitating that transaction. The marketplace will feature listings for all in-game (tradeable) items such as weapons, vanity items, land plots, maps, etc. As we mentioned above, the Shrap token will be the official currency of the marketplace, but the payment amounts will be displayed in USD terms for convenience's sake.

Rewards and Staking

The game rewards the players for discovering, curating, and promoting the very best user-generated content on the platform. Players can stake Shrapnel tokens on any map or vanity item to earn staking rewards. The rewards will be based completely on the performance of the asset in the ecosystem, so choose wisely.

Community

Although Shrapnel is quite new on the scene, it has already amassed a decent following on social media channels. The game’s primary communication platforms are Discord, YouTube, and Twitter. Let’s look at the numbers:

1. Twitter: 47,9k followers
2. Discord: 35524 members
3. Youtube: 1.21 subscribers

In Closing

The team at Shrapnel is creating something undeniably amazing. The game is truly an AAA title based on every metric, from graphics to gameplay to lore. However, everything boils down to the fact that it’s up to the team to deliver on this promise. If they are successful, Shrapnel has the potential to be the first breakout game from Web3. The reason for this is not because of the game's appealing tokenomics, but because it appears to be very appealing to hardcore players. They’ll simply want to play it for enjoyment’s sake, and these types of games will be the future of Web3 gaming.  If you enjoyed this piece, then check out our other pieces on the best games from various gaming genres like first-person shooters, MMORPGs, strategy games, and more. Stay tuned for more informative articles on the state of Web3 gaming. See ya in the next one.