Axie Infinity creator Sky Mavis has today announced that Axie Infinity: Origins is crossing the border into mobile, coming first to the Apple App Store.
In an aim to make Axie Infinity more accessible to audiences less familiar with Web3, Origins has now soft launched on mobile following its PC release, starting with a rollout to Apple users in Latin American and Asian countries.
These countries include Argentina, Colombia, Peru, Mexico, Venezuela, Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam.
Sky Mavis is already working with Google and Apple in order to bring feature parity.
Accessibility in a digital nation
Axie Infinity: Origins is a strategy game where players collect cards and use the titular Axies – a variety of creatures – to do battle, take down chimaeras, and face each other in the arena. The game already has 1.5 million installs worldwide across its current platforms and was very much the poster child of the rapid rise in NFT powered games and the play-to-earn phenomena.
Unfortunately the title (and its Ronin blockchain) suffered a $600 million hack alongside 2022 cooling crypto market and the title’s mercurial rise was cut short. The game has been licking its wounds since the theft in August 2022 so this new opportunity for mobile players to discover the game – without the expense of NFTs and blockchain dependence – is a chance for it to find new fans and rise again.
Improving accessibility over the previous Axie Infinity game, Origins makes itself an easier point of entry by giving players free non-NFT starter Axies. Spending money for new Axie NFTs is optional.
Sky Mavis has also announced its Mavis Market, a place where users are able to buy, sell and showcase their Ronin-powered NFTs. Ronin is Sky Mavis’ proprietary blockchain and as of today, select collectables from third-party game devs also using Ronin will be available via this marketplace.
“Sky Mavis remains committed to our vision of a player-owner digital nation and is excited to work with app stores to open our ecosystem to a new generation of Lunacians,” said Sky Mavis CEO Trung Nguyen.
“The launch of both Axie Origins on the App Store and our very own Mavis Marketplace is an important step towards creating more accessible and dynamic Web3 gaming experiences. We have exciting updates on the horizon.”
Back in February, Sky Mavis revealed that it has “more aggressive” plans for Axie Infinity throughout 2023.