Axie Infinity delays Origin game launch due to Ronin hack

Popular NFT-based game Axie Infinity announced the postponement of the release of its highly anticipated play-to-earn game Origin. The move was announced shortly after what appears to be the biggest hacking attack in cryptocurrency history.

This Tuesday (29), the Ronin Network, the protocol that bridges the gap between ETH and Axie Infinity, suffered a major attack, losing $620 million in cryptocurrencies.

Following the attack, the team at Sky Mavis – responsible for Axie Infinity – said they are committed to ensuring that all stolen funds are recovered or refunded.

Ronin Network, on the other hand, revealed that it is working with Chainalysis to track the stolen funds and with CrowdStrike to focus on forensics.

Origin release delayed

In addition to impacting players, the hack also the team to postpone the release from March 31 to April 7.

In a statement posted on their blog, the Axie team highlighted that the game is ready for soft launch. However, they decided to give the engineering and security team additional time to thoroughly investigate the full implications of the breach.

Then they will turn their full attention to supporting the Origin launch.

“On Thursday, April 7th, Origin will be available for download via Mavis Hub! We are incredibly excited to get Origin into the hands of our community! Even though we may not be able to share it with you today as planned, we hope the flurry of videos and content we’ve prepared will help prepare you when it’s available next week.”

About Origin

P2E Origin will offer players a completely new experience. Also, some features related to SLP earnings will be implemented before launch.

The SLP burning mechanic will be implemented in Origins, specifically with the casting of runes and amulets.

Runes will give Axies passive abilities. Meanwhile, the amulets will increase the skills they already have. Both will be created off-chain using moonshards, the new in-game currency.