There are days when I do my best to zen: I make myself a cup of tea, snuggle up under some blankets, and put on a soothing six-hour video of Sir David Attenborough narrating the intricacies of life on earth.
GenWars is NOT for those days. It’s a blood-pumping, fast-paced PvP multiplayer adventure—and it has JUST arrived in Minecraft! (Hold my tea, Sir David!)
In a nutshell
The game centers on capturing and upgrading towers using generators, or gens for short. Those gens produce income… which you can use to buy more gens, to produce more income! So far so good, right?
But watch out—raiding other players and stealing their gens is a quick way to boost your income. That means other players will attempt to raid your towers as well, so you best fortify and defend them. Luckily, you are up for the challenge, right?
The circle of life
Much like a baby bird, you start by spawning on a platform in the sky, from which you can drop down to claim your first tower. You do that by placing a gen in an unclaimed tower. Done!
And much like groundhogs, gophers or moles, it all starts with dirt—that is, players start with the basic Dirt Generator. You can work your way up from there to the 100+ generators available at release. (There are more natural world allegories I could make here, but I’ll stop now. I promise.) Buy, steal, or secure gens from the occasional rare airdrop… if you can bear to leave your tower unguarded.
Survival of the fittest
Which brings me back to raids. They are time-limited, so strategy and speed matter. If you are a raider, you have just three minutes to get in, get your gens, and get out… And if you are defending your tower, hang tight! These raiders won’t be able to raid the same base for an hour, so you have some time to fortify your defenses… if you survive, that is.
Luckily, you can favorite one gen so it cannot be broken by others, so you’ll always have one home base. Phew! Still, you might choose to fly the nest (Sorry. I lied about the allegories) if it’s smack bang in the middle of enemy turf.
During your adventures, you’ll gain personal prestige ranks. Your prestige also determines biomes, so you’ll progress through from the Overworld to a desert environment, or to the Nether, or (eventually) even the End. For almost any other animal, it would be an odd and unfortunate migration. But for us unique creatures who look for challenges in Minecraft—neat, right?
And if you get a little lonely out there, you can always get a little help from your friends…
Herd mentality
Humans are social animals, and teaming up plays off. It’s much more fun to work as a team to defend your habitat territory. Not to mention embarking on raids to steal gens and resources. Players can also follow friends into GenWars via Minecraft’s Join a Friend functionality, or they can join or create teams.
Teams share a bank, allowing the coordination of resources. They also share a level, so you can work towards team level progression together. At the end of each month, the teams with highest level that month are celebrated in the Hall of Fame, earning exclusive rewards and permanent recognition!
The future
Monthly drops are planned to provide new content on an ongoing basis. Expect new custom traps, tower guards, tower skins, and even more ways to customize and protect your towers.
So off you go! Delve into GenWars to discover its tricks and tricks for yourself.
And if you do need a moment to zen before diving into the action, or even just want a recap on GenWars… I highly recommend rereading this article in a dignified British accent.
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