Etherlink’s gaming ecosystem got a fresh shot of momentum this week with the launches of two strategic titles: Pikes Arena and Cricket Champions. This brings the layer-2 on Tezos past 11 active games and supports a community of roughly 180,000 wallets in the last month.
Pikes Arena is built for tense, tactical PvP play. Matches hinge on positioning and resource control as players jockey for advantage and chase real-world rewards. The title ships with three distinct modes: a free Warm-up mode to let newcomers learn combat basics; Pike mode, where players duel for PIKE$ tokens and airdrop eligibility; and a riskier tez (XTZ) mode that lets players wager native tez in head-to-head battles.
The team behind Pikes Arena also leaned on Sequence’s account-abstraction smart contract wallet and Sequence Builder tools to smooth the onramp from Web2 to Web3, a nod to user experience that many blockchain games are prioritizing.
The other release, Cricket Champions, bills itself as the world’s first strategy collectible-card game devoted to cricket, and it’s tailor-made to tap the sport’s enormous global following. Players collect and upgrade cards representing cricketing elements, craft strategies, and face off in PvP card battles.
The roadmap includes a campaign series with progressive challenges, Esports tournaments, and even regional college, city and national championships in India, an obvious play to turn cricket fandom into a competitive gaming funnel on chain.
Bringing Mainstream Audiences into Web3
These launches arrive amid a broader wave of activity on Tezos and Etherlink. Notable recent highlights include Distinct Possibility Studios, founded by industry veteran John Smedley, raising $30.5 million for the AAA shooter Reaper Actual, which is also being developed on Etherlink; TapNation releasing Athletic Rush on Tezos; and Etherlink game Uranium Miner hitting 180,000 monthly active users during its first season.
Sugarverse, a Web2 property with a 60-million user base that launched the CNDY token last year, is reportedly preparing a Web3 game to onboard its existing audience, and launchpads such as OpenPad and GameFi have added Tezos and Etherlink to their pipelines to provide early-stage funding and go-to-market support.
“The metrics demonstrate the strength of our approach to Web3 gaming,” said Efe Kucuk, Head of Gaming at Trilitech (Tezos R&D Hub in London). “By focusing on seamless integration, user acquisition support, dedicated funding, and product expertise, we’ve created an environment where innovative game concepts can thrive.”
Technically, Etherlink is an EVM-compatible Layer 2 powered by Tezos Smart Rollups technology. That combination aims to give developers the best of both worlds: a familiar EVM environment for deploying existing codebases, plus Tezos’ rollup layer for scalability and cross-chain migration of users and assets from Ethereum and other chains.
With two genre-focused titles now live and a steady stream of high-profile projects and integrations, Etherlink is positioning itself as a practical option for studios that want fast EVM compatibility along with the user-friendly tooling that helps bridge mainstream audiences into Web3. Expect more launches and ecosystem plays as teams chase the same thing: easy onboarding, real competitive play, and pathways for games to scale beyond early adopters.
