Nyan Heroes Playtest 4 Reaches Top 100 Most Played Games on Epic Games Store

Developer 9 Lives Interactive has announced that Playtest 4 of free to play hero shooter Nyan Heroes has successfully reach the top 100 most played games on the Epic Games Store, according to an official X post from April 7th.

While this does not seem to still be the case at the time of writing, the fact the game reached that range in any day at all in this early, limited-time testing phase is still a great sign of the growing interest in the competitive web3 title.

If you haven’t already, you still have time to download and play to earn for free until April 14th in this reward-packed pre-alpha test known as Airdrop 4.

What’s New in Nyan Heroes Playtest 4?

In terms of gameplay features, Playtest 4 is the biggest update yet for Nyan Heroes. It introduces a new game mode called Fishball, a new map, a new MODS system, a new Guardian, a new Cat Pilot, and a number of welcome improvements for a more polished blockchain gaming experience than the one you could try in the previous test session.

Fishball is a new, tactical ball-control game mode where the objective is to get the ball to the enemy’s goal to earn points. The team that is the first to get 5 points in these fast-paced matches wins the game. You play as Guardians in this mode, and once you pick up the ball, your movement ability is disabled, encouraging you to throw it to your teammate, the goal, or a favorable position. You can adjust the distance of the throw as well. If time runs out with the score tied, the game then enters Sudden Death Mode, disabling Cat Pilot respawn. This means that the match is then won either by scoring one goal, or by taking out the whole team.

The MODS system allows you to place active and passive upgrades on your Guardians by spending Memory Units. Every Guardian has 25 Memory Units, while MODS are divided into 5 different rarities. You can level up MODS to level 5 to make them stronger. Anyone can earn MODS after every match, with a victory guaranteeing one MOD, while a loss gives you a 50% chance of dropping one. MODS come in various different effects that can include health boosts, overshields, lifesteal, AoE damage, and more.

The new map in question is Tokyo, which sports an urban level design with various chokepoints and cover to use to your tactical advantage. It’s only available in the Fishball mode though, at least for this playtest.

The new Guardian, called Gizmo, is capable of collecting scrap from defeated enemies in order to receive temporary bonus armor as a passive ability. Gizmo can deploy up to 3 turrets that each clone your primary weapon, and the new character is also able to throw a platform in the air for added protection. The ultimate ability for Gizmo is called Scrap Goliath, and activating it summons a huge statue with pieces of magnetic scrap around it that not only bring temporary bonus armor to your teammates, but also deal explosive damage to nearby enemies.

Coco is the new Cat Pilot that is now available with new animations and voice lines. More details on all new gameplay additions can be found in the patch notes section of the game’s official Discord server.

How to Participate in Nyan Heroes Playtest 4

Anyone can participate in Nyan Heroes Playtest 4 by downloading the third-person PvP shooter for free on the Epic Games Store, with the link included in this recent X post. The game is available for Windows PCs only and comes with different ways to play to earn a share of the 6.7 million $NYAN prize pool (around ~$115k at the time of writing).

Players can attempt to win a share of the reward pool across 3 different categories: the Challenger Tier (3.7 million $NYAN), the Leaderboard Tier (2 million $NYAN), and the Genesis Tier (1 million $NYAN).

The Challenger Tier requires you to simply play at least 50 matches while completing daily and weekly missions to earn MEOW points and bonuses. Rank in the top 5000 players with the most MEOW points to win tokens from this tier. Holding a Genesis Nyan or Guardian NFT gets you a points multiplier.

The Leaderboard Tier requires you to win as many matches as you can to rank in the top 3000, with a minimum of 25 wins needed to potentially qualify. Whoever ends up as the highest-ranked player here will win 250k $NYAN tokens (~$4270).

The Genesis Tier is an NFT-focused tier designed to reward those who hold a Genesis Nyan & Guardian NFT pair. More than 20k MEOW points needs to be accumulated to unlock the tier, while multipliers are said to only be applied “for matching pairs of Nyan and Guardian NFTs.” The rarer the pair, the higher the multiplier. You can find Genesis Nyans and Genesis Guardians on Magic Eden.

Nyan Heroes is planned to officially release during winter 2025.