Skip to main content

Land ahoy as Splinterlands opens up for surveyors

Auto-battler card game Splinterlands has released a beta version of its new land expansion. The Land 1.0 release allows players to “survey land” and to buy and sell plots, which are NFTs (unique digital assets), within the Splinterlands environment.

The main Splinterlands game, which involves assembling a deck of fighters under a “Summoner” and then automatically battling an opponent, is fully launched and has been in development from 2018. The land expansion has been in the works for many years, with the 150k available plots selling out in June 2021.

With the Land 1.0 release, players are not yet able to stake cards against the land or begin producing resources within the game. Those features and additional functionality will be included in later releases.

Enjoy our reporting? Sign up for the Pharos newsletter and receive an update every week for free.

In the land game – called The Secret of Praetoria – single plots of land are arranged within tracts (100 plots) and regions (1000 plots). There are 150 individual regions. The game has reserved some areas of Praetoria that cannot be sold.

While the release is a significant milestone, Splinterlands continues to shed connected crypto wallets dramatically, as reported earlier this week.

Unique active wallets (UAW) connecting to the game daily fell to less than 40k at one point during the week, continuing a trend that according to DappRadar data began in early 2023. The loss of connected wallets is thought to reflect the developers purposely shedding bot accounts, rather than indicating a dramatic loss of popularity.

The high-water mark of Splinterlands UAW was late 2021, when over 300k wallets were associated with the game. Using automated scripts to play the game is not explicitly forbidden, and there are many tutorials online on how to do it.

Polemos staff

Our small editorial team is distributed globally: UK, France, Turkey, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, US and Colombia. We are dedicated to bringing our audience accurate and timely information about the world of blockchain gaming. Please see the Editorial Policy or Team links in the footer menu for more.