As colorful spatial abilities whipped around the screen, I watched a cel-shaded protagonist dispatch numerous enemies in a dazzling display as the first gameplay trailer I saw of Big Time came to a close. My initial impression was that the game looked great. However, as another entrant into the unconventional world of Web3 gaming, it left me with plenty of questions.

“We definitely see Big Time growing beyond just those folks,” Executive Producer Hunter Hudspeth told me during out interview when I asked about the game’s popularity among the GameFi crowd. Over the past several years, Web3 gaming has struggled to find a foothold with a broader gaming public, settling on a niche typically interested in Play to Earn and token speculation.

Some developers, such as Big Time Studios, the developer behind the upcoming MORPG Big Time, have stressed that on-chain gaming doesn’t have to be predatory. Big Time wants gamers to game, and if NFT’s don’t excite them, they never need to interact with them. That seems like a tall order, especially when most Web3 developers depend on NFT’s as their main monetization model.

Hunter continued, “We put a lot of effort into making sure like, if someone is not interested in the Web3 stuff, and they picked up Big Time and played it for a while that none of that stuff would interfere with the fun that they are having of just playing this cool video game.”

Hunter noted that Web3 isn’t “super in your face” as a general design rule, but even if players don’t want to participate, they may receive NFT’s anyways, and it’s their prerogative to determine what to do then. If they decide to sell something, that’s up to them, but the idea here is that the choice isn’t singularly that you must participate in selling or buying NFTs for the game to be fun.

“Many of the NFT games that were done in the past were more a frustrating money transaction than a video game.” Lead Designer Ayrald Anneron chimed in. “Big Time, in its essence, it's really a third person, action RPG, where we have some procedural dungeons that you will play and play on repeat. And it's multiplayer, of course, we really want to encourage cooperation there.”

Ayrald stated that they took some inspiration from Final Fantasy 14 where roles came into play, including having all members be more active, with the ability to change things on the fly if needed. Though the game has an open world, the procedurally generated dungeons are where players currently spend the majority of their time. Due to the nature of the procedural generation, each dungeon dive should be different and engaging to players.

My first impression from the trailers I viewed ahead of the interview gave me a vibe like Wayfinder with the way the combat and general aesthetic gripped me. But Ayrald was quick to note that Big Time has its own unique charm to it that falls outside of blockchain.

“We have the concept of the pocket watch, which actually is something that you will use as a character that incarnates some our classes.” He explained. What this means is that, with different class pocket watches, you’ll be able to swap your classes on the fly, and each pocket watch will have different skills and abilities. Even pocket watches within the same class could have different ability profiles, and you may find yourself swapping multiple pocket watches within the same class family to use a wider array of unique skills.

Despite the pocket watch system, players will also have an overarching leveling system, where you’ll earn points and assign them within unlockable talent trees. In addition, the developers believe that the end game will revolve around finding the best pocket watches, and as a game whose monetization is tied with NFT’s this initially concerned me.

Never Pay To Win

“The pocket watch itself is game related. We don't want to be pay-to-win. So, everything we have that is dropped in the game that are non-NFT related, it's for the game progression.” Hunter said.

In fact, the entirety of the NFT’s in game at this point are all cosmetic, and Big Time Studios intends to keep it that way. It’s important that I give some context on the state of the NFT market, especially since the game itself has recently entered its Pre-Launch Season.

Big Time’s listings on Open Loot, an NFT marketplace, range wildly in price, with cosmetic items ranging from armor and titles to utility collectibles for the game’s SPACE housing system. That isn’t to say that the only items available for purchase are strictly cosmetic. The marketplace also has Hourglasses. Not to be confused with the pocket watch, the Hourglass is required in order to obtain the token currency $BIGTIME.

Between the cosmetic weapon skins and utility collectible skins, all of varying rarities, the price for these items could be just a few dollars, or as a recent sale of an Armory collectible can attest, thousands of dollars. As with most cosmetic shops, there are limited mints of skins to ensure that anything obtained will have a “rarity”, even within its own grade. You also have the ability to "Rent" your SPACE out to other players.

Monetization doesn’t stop with the marketplace though. There is also a cash currency known as Crystals that you can use to charge up items to obtain better cosmetic drops. To reiterate, these drops will not aid in progressing faster, and only enhance your chance for better cosmetic rewards.

Now that Pre-season is off and running, with plenty of player feedback, Big Time is readying their next big feature, PvP. “Introducing PvP in the context of this game is not an easy task.” Ayrald began, “And we don't want to be, just throwing in PvP just to say that we're doing PvP, at the end of the day, we want something fun.” They liken their vision of PvP to something like Guild Wars 2, citing the game’s accessibility as a model they are thinking of emulating.

While Big Time has a lot of features that are worthwhile, they’re still going to face an uphill battle with traditional gamers that are hesitant to dip their toe into Web3 waters. The game, when viewed in the context as a MORPG could find widespread appeal, but you don’t get much of a taste of that when you visit the website, which emphasizes collecting $BIGTIME tokens, crafting items with the currency $BIGTIME,  and obtaining collectibles. You would have to navigate from the main page to get a sense of the breadth of the game’s features.

Big Time has a lot of great features that I certainly want to try for myself, but have yet to have the opportunity. The prevalence of Web3 may be the primary focus at this stage, during Pre-Season, but I’m anxiously looking forward to where Big Time goes from here, and whether or not they truly will hit the Big Time with the non-GameFi crowd.