Review of top games and GameFi platforms on BNB Chain

Decentralized applications actively use native cryptocurrencies and tokens like Binance Coin (BNB). The more transactions, the more revenue for the ecosystem, and thus, the more opportunities for funding both the ecosystem itself and new projects to expand it.

GameFi 2.0: how has blockchain gaming evolved?

As is easy to guess, the acronym GameFi stands for "Game Finance" or "game finance" — similar to DeFi. However, early blockchain game developers focused more on the "financial" part rather than the "gaming" part.

In just a few years after the emergence of the GameFi market, hundreds of different games were released in the BNB Chain ecosystem alone, many of which were based on the Play-to-Earn or P2E model, one of the most popular in Web3 gaming. As the practice has shown, the developers put the economic model in the foreground rather than gameplay, eventually ruining the segment.

Players were attracted not so much by the gameplay but by the opportunity to earn money. In some regions, such as the Philippines, P2E games even became jobs for many people.

The problems of the GameFi market at the time are obvious:

• Decentralized games and GameFi projects such as MOBOX and Thetan Arena became effectively a "printing press", which eventually led to the crash of their native token exchange rate;
• High entry threshold: At the beginning of the game, the first participants bought in-game NFTs and items very cheaply. Later, their prices increased dramatically. But without these items, it was impossible to start playing or earning, so new players had to spend a lot of money at once just to get into the game.
• NFTs were static, not used in any way and were not particularly valuable, as a result, most such tokens lost their value over time.

You don't have to go far for examples: in late 2021, the native token of the then-popular framing game MOBOX, MBOX, was among the top 100 cryptocurrencies in terms of market capitalization, which at its peak reached $1 billion. However, as of April 2025, the value of the MBOX token has collapsed 99.7% from its all-time high (ATH) — from $15.68 to $0.047.

At the same time, MOBOX's market capitalization decreased more than 40 times to $23.8 million, and now, according to this indicator, the token of this project occupies only 685th place in the overall ranking of cryptocurrencies. As soon as MOBOX's "printing press" stopped working, users quickly lost interest in the game, although the project itself played an important role in the development of the BNB Chain ecosystem.

The MOBOX project received support from Binance Labs and attracted $7.5 million in investment. In addition, MOBOX introduced an interesting mechanic combining elements of GameFi and DeFi — MOMO-farms that allow you to farm NFT tokens, which gave MBOX value, albeit temporarily.

However, the GameFi industry continued to grow, and developers eventually realized that they needed to emphasize gameplay for game assets to be truly valuable to users and generate high demand.

In 2025, new trends in the GameFi 2.0 industry have emerged:

• A shift from a Play-to-Earn (P2E) model to Play-to-Own (P2O);
• The creation of more sustainable economic models as opposed to the now classic "printing press";
• Development of cybersports and Web3 streaming: the focus is on the popularization of GameFi projects, which allows to attract additional funds, including for the promotion of the projects themselves;
• Integration with other EVM-compatible networks to increase the player base;
• Integrating AI technologies and creating dynamic generative NFTs endowed with special properties that give tokens practical value.

The new "play to own" model not only lowers the entry threshold for players but also endows game assets with value. Thus, the rarest assets will be held by those players who have truly earned them, not just bought them in time on a token sale.

Leading Games and GameFi Platforms on BNB Chain

Arena of Faith

Arena of Faith is a MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) online tactical combat game that combines elements of real-time strategy and MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game). The mechanics of Arena of Faith is similar to the popular game League of Legends.

Arena of Faith is based on NFT characters who fight in PVP battles for prizes, which are determined based on player rank each season.

Arena of Faith was only released in early 2025 on the Steam Store, but as of April 2025, it is already leading the BNB Chain ecosystem in terms of daily active wallets (UAW) with over 12,000.

Arena of Faith has raised $6 million in investment from Binance Labs and Multicoin Capital. The game attracted over 200,000 users in the beta test alone, and the Arena of Faith team is actively pursuing partnerships with cyber sports leagues.

Four

GameFi ecosystem that provides a platform for decentralized game developers and token creators on the BNB Chain blockchain. Before rebranding, Four's platform was known as BinaryX, but after launching the platform Four.meme changed its focus to emphasize metaverses and user-generated content (UGC). Early on, the platform's user base exceeded half a million users alone.

The Four platforms have been called the "GameFi analog of Roblox." Its ecosystem includes tools for creating digital 3D models, an NFT marketplace, Patreon-like services, and brand advertising platforms. Famous games such as AI Hero, CyberChess, and CyberDragon have been released on the Four platform.

The team, then called BinaryX, raised $12 million in two rounds of investment. Its strategic partners were The Sandbox and Decentraland, well-known in the GameFi segment, and Polygon, a second-tier network. BinaryX's investors include Binance Labs, Multicoin Capital, and Animoca Brands. The project has also received a separate grant from the BNB Chain Foundation.

SecondLive

A gaming multiverse focused on social and cryptocurrency revenue generation, including staking mechanics.

The name suggests that SecondLive overlaps with Second Life, a virtual world with social network elements released in 2003. The main elements in SecondLive are 3D avatars and an NFT marketplace, where you can buy and sell virtual real estate.

The project is a partner of Binance itself and has attracted $10 million in investment from Binance Labs and ArkStream Capital. At its peak, SecondLive had an audience of over 2 million users.

Thetan Arena

Another popular MOBA in the BNB Chain ecosystem, Thetan Arena, was only developed for mobile devices. It has over 25 million downloads in the app stores.

Thetan Arena is a multiplayer game in the style of Clash of Clans, with Free-to-Play (F2P) mechanics and NFT elements. It features cyber sports leagues with prize tournaments.

The Thetan Arena team received a $15 million investment from Binance Labs and Animoca Brands for the launch. Additionally, Thetan Arena was among the few games to move to the new Unreal Engine 5 engine.

Ultiverse

An AI metaverse with dynamic NFTs. Ultiverse was one of the first GameFi projects to combine blockchain and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies.

Ultiverse's metaverse is based on AI characters generated by neural networks and capable of evolving. As the characters' properties change, so do their corresponding NFT tokens. In addition, Ultiverse's developers created their sidechain to scale the BNB Chain ecosystem.

The Ultiverse team has received $15 million in investment from Binance Labs and Sequoia Capital China, and its metaverse audience is said to exceed 300,000 users.