Play and earn strategy game ScarQuest has officially entered open beta, allowing anyone to jump in for free via PC on Steam or mobile by downloading on the Play Store or App Store.

What’s Included in the Open Beta?

Upon downloading, players can choose to start playing with a guest account or by connecting their X profile – the latter will allow you to save progress across platforms, meaning if you want to go from mobile to PC or vice versa, you simply connect the same X account to continue right from where you left off.

During this testing phase, players can enjoy the core gameplay that includes building your own base while raiding bases made by other players. When raiding, you get to deploy a variety of different upgradable troops from one side of the base, with the heroes automatically progressing forward and fighting enemy units and defenses in an effort to make it to the other side of the map to destroy the final structure and emerge victorious within the given time limit. Units are placed by spending differing amounts of energy, which recharges over time during the raid. Every unit has its strengths and weaknesses, so it’s important to create a balanced deck with the right combination of units that will be ready to take on any sci-fi fortress and army that stands in your wake.

A successful raid earns you a variety of in-game rewards pillaged from the player you raided. This means that it’s also necessary to create a strong home base of your own, using various different fortifications and units across 3 combat tiles. These tiles can be swapped in for different ones, as each tile can alter the terrain in different ways. The game can also set up defenses automatically for you, and there is also an option to field test your layout to see how good it is at repelling enemy raids. Each combat tile the raiders break through means a new deployment checkpoint for them, allowing invaders to deploy units closer to the finish line. If you happen to be around when someone is raiding your base, then you can actually jump into the match and help reinforce your defenses by using various different skills to slow down and destroy raiders.

As you play, you also get to complete various tasks to earn more rewards while progressing through the ranks, earning supply boxes potentially containing loot such as new cards. Among the earnable goodies that come from increasing your rank score, winning raids and completing different missions is also the $VEL in-game token, used for listing NFTs on the game’s own marketplace, buying tradable and non-tradable items found in the game’s store, unlocking new buildings and more. While it seems you can earn $VEL tokens and NFTs with this launch, it looks like we may have to wait a bit longer before the developers introduce the ability to import and export assets during this open beta. Once players can export, it will be possible to trade on the official NFT marketplace found on the game’s website, probably with both the existing on-chain $SCAR token and the in-game $VEL currency.

Open Beta Roadmap

Shortly after launch, the developers published a 2-part roadmap for this beta phase to give the community an idea of the features they can look forward to seeing introduced in the weeks ahead.

For the first part of the roadmap, the team is focused on improving the early-game user experience while optimizing server load and in-app purchase functionality by looking at player demand and adjusting IAPs accordingly.

Next to these improvements, 3 new features are also planned to make their way in this first part: Hero Skill Reforging, land import/export and limited-time arenas. The skill reforging feature will allow players to use their resources to create strong tradable heroes, while landholders will gain the ability to import their plots into the game to earn in-game resources when players mine on your land. Limited-time arenas will allow players to compete for prizes by using tickets to enter competitions.

In the second part of the roadmap, the focus will be on introducing new heroes to add to your deck while expanding the in-game economy to make it more accessible to Web2 gamers. This means that players will gain the ability to buy NFTs and $SCAR straight through the game through an upcoming in-game exchange.

Last but not least, the land rental feature will also go live, providing holders with the opportunity to earn passive income by leasing their plots to players who would like to rent land to progress faster.