Square Enix’s first blockchain game project, Symbiogenesis, has released its first batch of Ethereum NFT heroes—and the characters’ names are undeniably curious, to say the least. But they're selling.
Someone dropped over $1,200 worth of ETH for an NFT character named “Egg,” while another spent over $500 for a hero named “Starvation.” Neither Egg nor Starvation bear any physical resemblance to their names’ respective meanings, so it feels a bit like the names could have been spat out of an AI name generator, or are the beginning of someone’s crypto wallet seed phrase.
“Kennel” looks like she’s much more ready to start a punk rock band outside of a Hot Topic than symbolize a dog’s enclosure. “Dimple” appears to lack dimples, “Hair” looks to be lacking hair, and “Tuber” looks a lot more like a secret military operative than a root vegetable.
For its latest game, Final Fantasy creator Square Enix has done away with unique, fantasy-inspired names like Sephiroth or Yuna. All 500 of the Symbiogenesis Chapter 1 character NFTs have names that are real words—from “Condiment” to “Test” to "Wart" and “Mountaineering”—in an apparent effort to do away with giving these human characters human names.
But the intent—or reason, if any—for giving characters names like “Cockscomb” and “Famine” is unclear. Decrypt reached out to Square Enix for comment regarding the inspiration for such names, but did not immediately receive a response.
Symbiogenesis was first announced in late 2022 and will fully launch on December 21. The free-to-play browser-based story game will offer players a questing system to unlock further game chapters, but players will need an NFT hero to be considered to participate in the limited final game quest that determines the story’s ultimate outcome.
Who knows? Maybe the hero that decides the fate of Symbiogenesis will be named “Egg.” Or “Affair,” who's rocking both a baseball cap and chestplate armor. Or, it could even be spiky-haired “Excuse.”
Anything is possible.
Edited by Andrew Hayward