The Walking Dead: Empires Web3 Game Shuttered by Gala Games Despite the Hype

Gala Games is shutting down The Walking Dead: Empires less than two years after it officially hit the scene.

The fate of the survival-themed massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) was revealed on Wednesday as the NFT game developer and publisher announced it’s pulling off the plug on July 31, 2025.

“After careful consideration, we have made the difficult decision to sunset The Walking Dead: Empires, with the last playable date set for July 31, 2025,” Gala Games said in a statement. “This decision has not been made lightly and is the result of several factors, including the game’s performance in meeting our ambitious goals.”

The platform didn’t specify why it decided to abandon the project. However, the company hinted that it didn’t meet its “ambitious goals” for the project. Based on current market conditions, it’s evidently due to the continuous decline in public interest in NFT games, which people consider to be merely cash grabs and prioritize monetization over player experience.

Despite the interest in the zombie-apocalypse-themed show dwindling due to viewer fatigue, The Walking Dead: Empires received attention from hardcore franchise fans and NFT enthusiasts during its unveiling in 2021.

After its announcement, legendary land deed claims within the game went as high as $67,000 on the OpenSea marketplace. The hype was also amplified by that year’s “NFT boom,” when NFTs broke through into mainstream audiences.

By the time the game officially rolled out in 2023, enterprising individuals were still offering up to $30,000 for rare in-game NFT items and $1,000 for lower-tiered assets. While Gala Games launched TWD:E with free-to-play mechanics, it provided ways for paying users to gain leverage from NFT-based resources like guns, pieces of armor, and lands, among others. Unlike their regular versions, these special in-game commodities were indestructible, while lands served as safe havens from zombies and hostile players.

The crypto community also went bananas over the news of Gala Games axing The Walking Dead: Empires and the company's compensation plans for players. On X, formerly Twitter, Jesus Martinez, a popular figure in crypto gaming, criticized Gala Games for rug-pulling in its once-promising project and compensating players who invested thousands of dollars into its NFTs with cheap mystery boxes.

“The Walking Dead: Empires officially rugs on Gala,” Martinez exclaimed. “People paid upwards of $10K+ for lands and are getting $2 mystery boxes.”

Many people agreed with his sentiment, while some pointed out that the event should serve as another cautionary tale for projects within centralized platforms. They said the entire affair serves as a reminder that players don'ਾਂ ਦੇ