Fighting game fans unimpressed by new NFT apes title

Theo Salaun
street fighter vs nft ape

NFT apes are apparently coming to the fighting game world and, after seeing a short clip of the gameplay, people don’t seem very thrilled. In fact, backlash was heavy enough to get a tweet about the game deleted.

The fighting game and NFT communities are quite different. The former has existed for a long time and requires user-controlled hardware at its highest levels. The latter is relatively new and exists in the digital world of the blockchain.

But there is one very obvious point of similarity between so-called ‘NFT bros’ and the fighting game community: Pure passion.

On December 29, those worlds combined and their shared, albeit conflicting passions, lit a fire. An NFT ape project, “NiftyApeNation,” excitedly showcased their “Ape Island” video game… and the FGC immediately, enthusiastically, flamed it into the ground.

NFT apes turned into fighting game

While the December 29 tweet was deleted due to the unideal reception it received, you can still see a clip of “Ape Island” gameplay above. As you can observe, it’s exactly what it sounds like: NFT apes of various appearances fighting each other.

The game’s makers were excited to show off their project, its “WallStreetBets” background scenery, and Guinness Book of World Records aspirations. But, when fighting game enthusiasts caught wind of it in a follow-up tweet a week later, things took a turn for the worse.

Fighting game community shames NFT ape video game

Most of the FGC’s responses came with a relatively humorous tone, poking fun at the game’s rudimentary “hit boxes” and other mechanics. 

But some were… less jovial. One user’s reaction to seeing the game was quite colorful: “Nobody should know that it exists and I take great pity on the poor children who do find it.”

Perhaps to their delight then, the newest tweet showing off gameplay is erased from the internet. But the replies to it are not, as embedded above, and boy are they plentiful. It remains to be seen if the devs will take these responses as constructive criticisms to help improve the project’s mechanics.