Free to play brawler royale DARKTIMES has announced that its play to airdrop campaign, Rune Run, is scheduled to start on Monday, September 2nd, with over 20 gaming communities set to participate.
What Is Rune Run?
Rune Run is an airdrop campaign described in the announcement tweet as being “kinda like airdrop farming… but for gamers.” Which I assume should mean that we’ll get to enjoy a web3 gaming experience while completing the usual social tasks. The same tweet however further goes on to mention that the campaign will consist of Twitter engagement, unique content creation, and the opportunity to earn Genesis Chests, which are NFTs that should end up providing you early access to the blockchain game once the Nordic-inspired title goes live later this year. Next to gaining early access, Genesis NFTs also provide you with the benefit of playing in more advanced levels that offer various game rewards and bigger prize pools.
During this event starting September 2nd, participants will get to collect runes while trying to compete for the top of the leaderboard. Though not specifically mentioned at the time of writing, you can probably expect to see Genesis Chests as leaderboard rewards, while runes could be either points for ranking or potentially something else.
This campaign is being hosted together with more than 20 of the biggest communities in blockchain gaming, such as MON Protocol and Mocaverse. These partnered communities will probably have their own quests hosted for the campaign, and likely reward their NFT holders with runes or points for the leaderboard.
Details are well under wraps for the time being so most of these assumptions are based on how these airdrop events usually go, but it won’t be long before we get to truly find out what the team has in store for the web3 gaming community with Rune Run.
What Is DARKTIMES?
DARKTIMES is an upcoming free to play PvP RPG set in a Nordic-inspired medieval world. Players can look forward to utilizing a physics-based combat system while progressing through skill trees and enjoying a fast paced blockchain gaming experience. In a Medium post in May this year, the game is described as combining the visuals of Diablo with the gameplay of Fortnite. You will get to battle in matches of up to 36 players where everyone starts with nothing and must explore the dark fantasy environments in order to find various weapons, garments, and cosmetic items. The same post teases social logins, custodial wallets, and fiat payments as all the features that the game will consist of in order to deliver a seamless and user-friendly onboarding experience where players don’t need to know anything about blockchain technology to enjoy playing the blockchain-powered title. Web3 features are said to be used to give players the option “to both win and lose money” so while there will be free to play leagues, those looking to top the leaderboards and gain access to seasonal prize pools of significant quantity “will have to be willing to take the ultimate risks.”
This blockchain game is being published by Big Kid Studios and is backed by Animoca Brands. It has been in stealth development since late 2021 by Animoca’s flagship game developer, Blowfish Studios, known in crypto gaming as the developer of Phantom Galaxies. The previously linked Medium post also reveals more investors, including GameFi Ventures, Sfermion, Sebastien Borget, Brycent, Loopify, and many more.
Earlier this week, it was announced that DARKTIMES is launching on Sui thanks to a partnership with Mysten Labs. The first playtest is set to take place at Korea Blockchain Week, an annual web3 festival that starts this year on September 1st and ends on September 7th. Following this will be an alpha launch scheduled for later this year, where a limited number of players will have the opportunity to test and provide feedback on an early version of this play to earn game. You can pre-register for early access using your email address on the game’s official website.
