‘Wolf Game’ Halted After Solana Relaunch Prompts Backlash

Wolf Sport first launched in 2021, garnering a die-hard participant neighborhood over its four-year lifespan throughout each the Ethereum mainnet and ultimately layer-2 community Blast. However gamers aren’t proud of final week’s 2.0 relaunch on Solana, with some saying the transfer destroyed every part they’d grinded years for as a result of new “complicated” mechanics.

In response, Wolf Sport 2.0 was halted on Monday, liquidity was faraway from its lately launched Solana token, and the CEO behind the sport mentioned that he has stepped down.

When enjoying the unique Wolf Sport expertise, gamers might both personal a sheep or wolf NFT. These with a sheep might passively farm the WOOL token, whereas it was the job of the wolves to loot these earnings. Wolf gamers might even steal different gamers’ sheep NFTs—with all of this occurring on-chain, after all. 

This distinctive mechanic and crypto-native gameplay loop led to it garnering a bustling neighborhood, and ultimately to recreation writer Pixel Vault buying the sport in August 2023 for an undisclosed sum. A 12 months later, Wolf Sport migrated from Ethereum mainnet to layer-2 community Blast, which got here amid a serious airdrop farming push.

On Wednesday final week, Wolf Sport introduced that its new token on Solana was dwell and offered “Wolf Sport 2.0,” which claimed to have expanded the token’s utility through new in-game mechanics. Nevertheless, it wasn’t nicely acquired. 

Gamers discovered the reimagined model of the sport “complicated,” with a lack of rationalization for its mechanics coming from its builders. One participant mentioned that that they had “no clue what’s occurring,” with pseudonymous Wolf Sport CEO GFunk saying that explainers would come later. Within the meantime, a neighborhood member known as FarmerPiddy took the mantle to clarify how the brand new recreation works.

The brand new gameplay loop requested gamers to burn their wolf, sheep, land, and different NFTs that they had grinded for within the earlier recreation’s evolution. However in doing this, gamers weren’t reimbursed with a 1-for-1 model of the burned asset. Relatively, players would earn new in-game property like “Shep’s Kiss,” which could possibly be utilized in mini-games.

“What the hell is Shep’s Kiss? You’re asking us to burn our wolves, sheep, lands, and different property,” disgruntled neighborhood member Digital Optimyst wrote on X, previously Twitter. “Why would you destroy one thing with a robust, loyal neighborhood—one thing constructed round Shep’s imaginative and prescient, the unique white paper, and the fun of threat and reward?”

On prime of this, the two.0 relaunch didn’t embrace the Valley Sport 2.0, an upgraded model of a preferred mini-game that was hyped by the official X account again in September of final 12 months.

The backlash grew too loud on Monday, resulting in the sport being halted and GFunk twice claiming to have “stepped down.” GFunk didn’t reply to Decrypt’s request for remark.

The official X assertion mentioned that GFunk was working with the Farmhands Council to determine the following steps. The Farmhands Council, generally shortened to FHC, is a bunch of gamers and WOOL holders that had been nominated through the WOOL governance system. By becoming a member of the Council, people have a possibility to have their say on upcoming modifications to the sport.

A number of Farmhand Council members have claimed through Discord that they didn’t see a proposal of the modifications. One other member, JohnStargaryen, mentioned that the Council didn’t see the brand new model of the sport till per week earlier than the rollout, with “a number of individuals” voicing considerations that it shouldn’t launch.

Now, players are calling out for a neighborhood takeover, or CTO, to revive the sport. 

“I’ve by no means seen larger lore for a CTO since Pudgy Penguins,” pseudonymous crypto enterprise capitalist Beanie mentioned on X. “The perfect half is that Wolf Sport artwork is CC0. Nice alternative for an aspiring dev to return in and immediately get the help of many individuals, together with me.”



CC0, in any other case often called Inventive Commons Zero, implies that its paintings is within the public area, permitting it to be freely used and commercialized—NFT initiatives like Moonbirds opted for this mannequin in 2022. Because of this a Wolf Sport reboot might use official paintings with out the necessity of a proper acquisition, whereas the on-chain recreation property are composable and thus could possibly be usable in different apps.

For now, the Wolf Sport crew maintains that it’s listening to its neighborhood, will restore burned property, and is engaged on the “subsequent steps” for the title.

Edited by Andrew Hayward