The team behind web3 card battle game Captain Tsubasa Rivals has unfortunately announced that they are shutting down the Polygon and Oasys-powered version of the F2P title on Friday, November 28, at 06:00 UTC.

Why Is Captain Tsubasa Rivals Shutting Down?

Captain Tsubasa Rivals is shutting down on Polygon and Oasys blockchains due to it becoming difficult for the developers to continue sustaining the game’s ecosystem. After about 3 years of operations, that has been possible thanks to support from the blockchain gaming community, the team has unfortunately now had to make “the difficult decision to conclude the service,” according to the official X announcement.

The studio expresses their “deepest gratitude” to everyone who has supported and been involved with the project over the years. In a Medium announcement, the Operations Team gave out the following message:

"Taking on the challenge of combining the historic IP “Captain Tsubasa” with the new frontier of blockchain gaming was by no means an easy path, but thanks to our users, we were able to gain a wealth of experiences together. Although we had aimed for long-term game operation, it has become difficult to continue the game ecosystem. After much deliberation, we have made the difficult decision to terminate the service.

Once again, we would like to express our heartfelt appreciation to all users, as well as the stakeholders and partner projects who have supported us along the way.”

This unfortunate news comes just a day after another game, Eternal League, announced its pausing development. While servers for that one are supposedly set to remain open for the rest of the year, the servers for this sports card game will close near the end of November instead. As much as I’d like to see this game go open source like Blast Royale did, the chances of that happening here are very slim, especially given that this is a licensed project of a well-known football manga series. This also doesn’t seem to be the end for the IP in the blockchain gaming world, as this announcement only refers to the Polygon & Oasys versions. The Mini App looks set to remain live still, with a Season 3 planned to be coming soon. If you still want to play this one though, you still can for free until November 28, 06:00 UTC, on Android and iOS by downloading through the Google Play Store or Apple App Store, or by playing it on PC as a browser-based title.

Here is the schedule on the game’s wind down process.

Shutdown Schedule

On Sunday, October 26, at 23:59 UTC, the following game services will be terminated:

  • Deposits / GEM Purchases
  • RIVALS Mode / PvP Mode
  • ARENA PvP Mode
  • Marketplace

All of this will then be followed by the end of Arena (Special Match) on November 7 at 06:00 UTC, and then the entire app and website will fully shutdown on November 28, 06:00 UTC.

If you have the following tokens in the game, make sure to withdraw them as soon as possible before services officially close:

Once relevant services have been terminated, you won’t be able to withdraw these tokens anymore. As for $TSUBASAUT, it’s been specifically noted that you cannot withdraw it “beyond the available withdrawal amount.”

As for NFTs, the Medium post states that they won’t be viewable anymore once service has been terminated.

"We would like to once again extend our sincere gratitude to everyone who has supported and enjoyed “Captain Tsubasa -RIVALS- Polygon/Oasys.” Although the remaining time is short, we hope you will continue to enjoy the world of “Captain Tsubasa -RIVALS- Polygon/Oasys” until the very end."

What Is Captain Tsubasa Rivals?

Captain Tsubasa Rivals (Polygon & Oasys version) is a turn-based deckbuilding game in which you develop your own set of player cards and compete against rivals from the original series in casual PvE gameplay while enjoying simple strategic PvP card battles using your own unique characters. Battles are short and done in turns, and you also have the option of using special moves from the original series to win matches and earn the $TSUBASAUT utility token.

If you’re a fan of this sports IP and want to play a casual mobile game for 5 minutes a day, then this would’ve likely been a nice blockchain-powered title to play in your spare time.

Captain Tsubasa Rivals was initially announced back in October 2022, a couple of months after the anime and manga series partnered with The Sandbox. The game then launched in January 2023 as a play and earn NFT game on Polygon, followed by an Android and iOS launch in January 2024. In May last year, the developers expanded to multi-chain operations by releasing the game on Oasys.

Despite all the effort and support, maintaining an online game over the long-term is always a difficult endeavor, both in and outside web3 gaming, and this one is now sadly joining the list of many dead web2 and blockchain games over the past months and years that have been unable to sustain and grow their playerbase and revenue streams at a good enough level to keep going. Check out our piece on why so many web3 games are shutting down and what new projects can do better.

Fortunately, this IP does seem to continue to live on in the crypto world, because the Mini App edition of Captain Tsubasa Rivals does not seem affected by this closure, and is in fact planned to have Season 3 start soon.

Mini App Stays Live, Season 3 Coming Soon

The Mini App version of Captain Tsubasa Rivals continues to live on via Telegram and LINE, where players can train 44 player cards and boost team power to earn $xJOHN, which seems to determine your airdrop allocation of the TON and Kaia-based $JOHN token during the ongoing Season 2. Train and level up panels to earn resources every hour and spend them on training player cards to increase Player Power. The higher the Player Power, the better your overall Team Power, meaning potentially higher seasonal rewards. Players can also stake $JOHN to earn more $sJOHN and thus gain a bigger share of this season’s prize pool. By accumulating both $xJOHN and $sJOHN, you increase your chances of winning a larger portion of the reward pool.

While it’s not clear when Season 2 ends, the team has teased in a recent X post that they are planning to move forward with “preparations” for Season 3 soon. This was posted on September 29, 3 days after the shutdown announcement of the Polygon & Oasys version, so it seems like the Mini App continues to live on. If you’d like to play that one instead, head on over to the game’s official Linktree to access the Telegram or LINE version and start your play to earn journey for free.