Azra Games: The Hopeful

Hello everyone! Today we have an exciting project to take a look at that will unlock access to an upcoming P2E game created by a highly talented and fully doxxed team. The Hopeful is a collection of 5,555 NFT all-access passes, soon to be minting onto the Ethereum blockchain. The art/pfp project serves as the Genesis entry pass for the Azra Games ecosystem. Best of all, this is another FREE mint!

Let’s dive in!

Who is Behind the Project?

Behind the project is Mark Otero hailing from California, USA.
Mark has an extensive track record within the game development industry. Having served as General Manager at EA Capital Games (EA Studio for mobile development) for 4 years. During this time he launched Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes which grossed over $1.4B in revenue and 100M+ downloads to date – having been EA’s most successful mobile title for 6 consecutive years. Mark brings a wealth of experience to Azra Games – which is now his sole focus.

Team Members

Mark Otero – CEO
Sonny Mayugba – COO
Travis Boudreaux – CTO
Neel Upadhye – VP, Game Producer
Michael Noriega – Creative Director
Ken Walton – VP of Growth
Jeff Bolante – Director of Growth
Cathleen Rootsaert – Narrative Director
Dave Gibbons – Art Director
Eric Koziel – Technical Product Manager
Nathaniel Fong – Design Director

The team is comprehensive and each team member boasts an abundance of experience, which is fantastic news. Each Member is doxxed down to a LinkedIn profile. Additionally, outside of the core executive team there is a broader team of game designers, developers, artists and more on board. At least 42 staff work or intern at Azra Games based on the latest numbers.

About the Collection

The Hopeful will be the Genesis installment in the Azra Games ecosystem.
Each NFT isn’t just great a great piece of avatar artwork, but also actually serves as your Play Forever Pass. Holders of each Play Forever Pass will be treated to a wide range of amazing benefits in the upcoming Legions & Legends game (Azra Games first title!), plus benefits in all future Azra games.
The game itself has little information published as of current, but we do know that the game will be set in a sci-fi universe where players will be able to command legions of armies and battle with others, crafting various in-game items, and an in-game NFT collectible market. Plenty of exciting plans are to come from the Legion & Legends game.

The Hopeful NFTs are fantastic pieces of artwork. Each are expertly crafted. High resolution details, clean lines and highly realistic shading define this collection. The NFTs come in so many styles, many variations are present. We are seeing different skin tones, weapons, helmets, clothing and backgrounds. Special shout out to the backgrounds – good textured backgrounds with nice shading really makes the avatars stand out. All of these variables will serve as traits across the 5,555 piece NFT collection.

The Utility

As previously mentioned, the Genesis The Hopeful collections primary purpose is to serve as the Play Forever Pass for the upcoming Legions and Legends game. However, in addition to this there are some small tidbits of utility added in, just for holding the NFT which will include:

• Private Discord channels, including Alpha & more
• Allowlist opportunities focused on bluechip NFT and NFT gaming projects
• Private crypto & NFT seminars with leading figures
• Opportunity to provide feedback on artwork and design
• Sneak-peeks of upcoming art
• Earliest beta access to Legions & Legends and future Azra Games titles
• Invitations to real world Azra Games events

So once you own a Hopeful NFT, all you need to do is sit back and wait for the features to roll out.

Road Map

The Road Map touches on the main points but is incredibly brief. We are only given the date for the upcoming mint. Currently, we don’t know how long the upcoming Legions & Legends game will take to release.

PHASE 1

• 01.12.2022 – Birth of Azra Games
• 02.26.2022 – Community Formation
• 05.19.2022 – Funding Announcement

PHASE 2

• 06.29.2022 – L1 Blockchain Selection – ETH
• 06.29.2022 – LEGIONS & LEGENDS Reveal
• 09.2022 – “The Hopeful” NFT Trailer
• 09.28.2022 – “The Hopeful” NFT Mint

PHASE 3

• L2 Layer Announcement
• Gameplay Trailer
• Azra Token Offering
• LEGIONS & LEGENDS Litepaper

PHASE 4

• LEGIONS & LEGENDS NFT Mint
• Sandbox Testing
• Soft Launch

PHASE 5

• Worldwide Launch
• New Content and Live Service

Socials

• Twitter – 74.8k followers | Joined January 2022 – Large Twitter account. Account has a lot of tweets and tweets very regularly. Tweets get pretty average engagement, with some performing very well.
• Discord – 39k Members | 5.8k Online – Rule acceptance on entry, push button verification. Bots sit below regular Discord users. No shilling channels. General chat has regular conversation and moves along quickly at times.
• Instagram – 79 Followers | 0 Posts – No posts, barely any followers. Account not active yet.

Smart Contract

Smart Contract is not yet available for review.

Price & Mint Date

The project is a FREE mint.

Mint date is on September 28th 2022. We don’t yet know the minting time for the Tier 1 & 2 Whitelists. However, we do know its over allocated and only 700 slots are available in the public sale.

The project will be minting on the Magic Eden platform – important to note that this is an ETH mint, but it will be using the Magic Eden site to mint from.

Conclusion

The project has great artwork that truly pops. In addition to the great artwork, there is a whole load of utility to come from the Azra Games ecosystem, including access to the Legions & Legends game – plus anything else released. The team are fully doxxed, utilising a team with a great track record. Andreessen Horowitz, Coinbase Ventures, Franklin Templeton are reportedly partnered with the project which is a great sign.
It is hard to pick fault with the project. They are a fully doxxed, large team with outside investment doing things by the book. The only area I could fault is the current lack of information on the upcoming Legions & Legends game – we don’t know exactly when this is slated for release and haven’t seen any gameplay sneak peeks.

Overall, this is a great project. Good artwork, with most likely real utility being offered by a doxxed group with outside investment. All in all, this will be one to mint if you can. If you are minting it for free you will likely be able to sell this one for a profit fairly quickly if that is your intention – owing to the current demand and traction the project has.

As always, please do your own research. This report does not constitute financial advice.