This article has been updated with help from Krigs of The Hologram, a website dedicated to Star Atlas.
With Illuvium’s Kieran Warwick set to debate Michael Wagner from Star Atlas on July 27th I thought there was no better time to compare the two projects. I tried my best to come at this from a completely unbiased perspective, but have to admit I am much more knowledgeable about Illuvium vs. Star Atlas. I took a few days to look through the Star Atlas Twitter, discord and website to help gain a better understanding of the project. What I found was interesting and worth the research. However, I was approached by Krigs, a Star Atlas blogger, and thought it was only right to update the article with his views of Star Atlas.
The Premise: Illuvium (Rhamphy)
Illuvium gets its inspiration from Pokémon and in its simplest form, the project claims to be the Pokémon of Web 3. Finally, you can sell the Charizard that you catch in game. In its current state, Illuvium has an autobattler in private beta 1 that is similar to team fight tactics. They have Illuvium Zero, which is a city builder game coming very soon. Also coming shortly is the avatars that will be used in game called Illuvitars. Each component will come together in the Illuvium Overworld where you will be able to explore different regions, catch and battle Illuvials. Every step of the way it makes sense and each portion of Illuvium has a purpose.
The Premise: Star Atlas (Krigs)
Star Atlas is a grand strategy Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game built on the Solana blockchain. Star Atlas is inspired by games like Eve Online, Stellaris, and Star Citizen. The game intends to combine gameplay elements from all three into a single Unreal Engine 5 experience. In Star Atlas you can join one of three factions: Ustur, MUD, or ONI. Players will represent one of the three factions and attempt to advance the causes of each faction alongside their own. In it’s current state, players can purchase ship Semi-fungible tokens and employ them in Star Atlas’ SCORE module. SCORE was released in Dec 2021 and allows ship owners to earn $ATLAS over time. Star Atlas next plans to release the alpha version of their Unreal Engine 5 showroom sometime in October 2022. Players will be able to interact with their purchased ships and eventually fly them in future updates. Lastly, Star Atlas plans to release its SCREAM module in the fourth quarter of this year. SCREAM will be the first truly playable module where gameplay is modeled after Stellaris. Players will compete for resources and territory as they seek to build up Star Bases for their parent factions. All these modules will eventually coalesce into the full Unreal Engine powered Star Atlas game.
Transparency: Illuvium (Rhamphy)
I’ve seen a ton of NFT projects come and go in the last 2 years. No team has been more transparent than Illuvium. This is led by cofounder Grant Warwick who proudly posts his teams progress in discord. I looked at discord post dates to get an idea of the frequency and here is what I found for Illuvium: July 16, July 17, July 18, July 19 and July 21. That type of consistency is what I mean. These updates included a wide range of items from the layout of an arena to landscapes to types of armor. These regular updates provide all the details one could ask for when interested in a game being built.
Transparency: Star Atlas (Krigs)
The Star Atlas dev team, including CEO Michael Wagner, is highly active in the Star Atlas private channel known as The Foundation Room. Nitro Boosting the Star Atlas server is required to access the Foundation Room. Community members interact with the dev team, including Wagner, on a daily basis. The community can ask any question pertaining to game play and development and are usually responded to within the hour, if not minutes. Star Atlas also releases new ships every two weeks as part of their Galactic Asset Offering Phase 2. Each released ship has a panel of artwork included available for view on the Star Atlas marketplace. The team is also active on Twitter where many of the “leaked” Unreal Engine 5 footage is published.
Artwork: Illuvium
The artwork for Illuvium is incredible. It puts most of Web 3 to shame. They strive for perfection and the work speaks for itself:
Simply stunning. It’s hard to do better than what the Illuvium team has built and continues to build.
Artwork: Star Atlas
Although they provide artwork with much less frequency, I do like what I see. Similar to Illuvium, I will let the art speak for itself:
The concept art is very clean and clearly Star Atlas has some talented designers. It will be interesting to see how these images translate to actual gameplay.
Getting ready for the debate (Rhamphy)
So there you have it. A window into each project ahead of the debate. I think Illuvium has a more focused approach than Star Atlas. There is a clear number of regions, Illuvials etc being created. We know what we’re getting with Illuvium. Star Atlas is more of a wild card. That’s not necessarily a bad thing and it’s good to be ambitious, but there seems to be a lot more variables at play with Star Atlas. More variables means more points of failure. As an investor, it’s something to consider.
Personally, I didn’t see anything in Star Atlas that would make me shift my focus from Illuvium, but I could see the allure for gamers looking for a good space exploration game. Illuvium, in my opinion, is still in a league of it’s own, but Star Atlas is a better quality design than most other NFT games out there. Both will help lift the standard of gaming in Web 3 as a whole. Now that we have an understanding of both projects, all that is left to do is sit back, relax and enjoy the upcoming debate on July 27th!
Getting ready for the debate (Krigs)
The Star Atlas team is currently focused on releasing the SCREAM module before year’s end. The recent updates to the galactic marketplace, Star Atlas DAO, and Star Atlas recruitment program provide a path forward to the development of a full Unreal Engine game. Star Atlas is a highly ambitious project and those ambitions understandably are not without delays. In its end state, Star Atlas seeks to build a digital nation-state built within the metaverse and through gaming and game like mechanics. Star Atlas citizens will eventually be able to conduct commerce and transaction in a fully Web 3.0 integrated economy. Both Illuvium and Star Atlas are pioneers in the Web 3.0 space and each projects seeks to achieve different goals. In either case, each project and their communities will advance the utility of blockchain gaming technology and revolutionize the way business is conducted in the digital world.
Thank You
As always, thank you for reading my article! Follow me on Twitter (@Rhamphy) to keep up with the latest Illuvium news, leaks and more.
Everything I write is purely my opinion and should not be taken as financial advice.
About The Hologram
The Hologram is Star Atlas’ first and only independent news network. Our vision is to become the most trusted source of information about Star Atlas and a voice for the whole community. Readers can expect a high standard from our reporting and staff. Our promise to you: we will not publish anything that hasn’t been thoroughly researched and based on the best facts available. The Hologram is not endorsed or paid by the Star Atlas team. Any information published by The Hologram nor its writers should be considered as informational in nature and does not constitute any financial advice.
