Square Enix to launch NFT game on Polygon

Symbiogenesis was first announced last November, and at the time, the publisher said that the story-driven collectibles game was tentatively planned to launch on Ethereum

Square Enix—the storied Japanese video game publisher behind franchises such as Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, and Kingdom Hearts—announced today that it will launch its forthcoming non-fungible token-based game Symbiogensis on Polygon, an Ethereum scaling network.

Symbiogenesis was first announced last November, and the publisher said at the time that the story-driven collectibles game was roughly planned to launch on Ethereum. Though, the firm said today that it will rather use Polygon, which uses a sidechain to offer quicker and cheaper transactions than Ethereum’s own mainnet can handle.

Square Enix chose to tap into Polygon’s faster transactions, less gas fees, and overall user-friendliness to deliver this unique experience to Web3 fans, game producer Naoyuki Tamate said in a press release.

The publisher has drip-fed information via an official Twitter feed since November, but has yet to launch an official website, full trailer, or in-game screenshots ahead of its scheduled spring launch.

Square Enix offered a few more details besides today’s announcement. The game will seemingly be built around 10,000 character non-fungible tokens tied to strategic game mechanics, even though there will be other non-fungible tokens used in the game as well. As per a document shared by Polygon Labs, though, owning a character non-fungible token is not needed to play the game, although it adds unspecified “extra value” to the experience. Character non-fungible token holders can seemingly create “replica NFTs” to share story information with other players.

Symbiogenesis will take place on a floating continent above a polluted future Earth, with society forced to come together and make hard choices once a dragon threatens their safe haven.

The game will feature turn-based gameplay tied to the storyline, which takes various paths as users finish missions and either hold or trade non-fungible tokens. Square Enix has displayed non-fungible token items including dragon tarot cards and a monster storybook, but has not shared solid information about price or how they affect the game.

The November announcement of Symbiogenesis was met with considerable reprisal from Square Enix’s traditional video game fans. That is common for Web3 games and projects created by established gaming firms, but in this case, some fans were annoyed because of rumours that the game would be a new entry in the long-dormant Parasite Eve franchise.

Square Enix has made a number of moves in the Web3 space in the past few years, but Symbiogenesis marks both its first proper non-fungible token-based game and also its first internal project set within the Ethereum ecosystem.