George Tsagkarakis
Immutable plans to rebuild Immutable Chain, the network behind games such as Gods Unchained (official site) and Guild of Guardians (official site), on the OP Stack, the open-source framework developed by Optimism. The change turns the network into a standard Ethereum rollup. Immutable is targeting mid-2027 for the migration.
Players get faster block times, slightly higher fees and a seven-day wait on native withdrawals. Developers will lose the public gaming testnet before any of that happens.
Faster blocks, slightly higher fees
Immutable says block times will drop from about two seconds to one second, so onchain actions in games on the network should confirm faster.
Transactions should get a little more expensive. Immutable expects fees to rise slightly after the migration. Transactions on the network are cheap at the moment, and how much fees actually move will depend on network activity once the switch is done.
Bridging and withdrawals change
Immutable Chain uses Axelar for native bridging today. After the migration, withdrawals will be verified directly against Ethereum with cryptographic proofs, and data availability moves to Ethereum as well.
The network will launch with permissioned fault proofs. Immutable plans to add zero-knowledge validity proofs at a later stage.
Anyone who moves assets between networks should know that native withdrawals from the upgraded chain are expected to take about seven days.
Why Immutable is switching
Immutable Chain runs on a heavily customized version of Go-Ethereum (Geth). With a custom build, every major Ethereum upgrade, security patch and protocol change has to be integrated by hand. Immutable says moving to the OP Stack brings the network closer to Ethereum’s standard infrastructure, makes future upgrades easier to ship, improves compatibility and cuts the work of maintaining a separate blockchain implementation.
Testnet shutdown and migration day
Immutable will shut down its public gaming testnet by the end of 2026. According to the announcement, very cheap gas and missing third-party integrations meant the testnet couldn’t reproduce real-world conditions for complex games. Immutable is pointing studios to their own local test environments, or to the production network where that makes sense.
Developers and infrastructure providers will have to read Immutable’s migration documentation and adjust their setups. Immutable says it will announce the exact migration date in advance. Block production is expected to pause for several hours during the switch.
What it means for games on Immutable
Immutable’s games run on PC and mobile. Gods Unchained GODS $0.0197 ▼ -5.6% is a free-to-play trading card game: you build decks, play strategic matches and collect cards that exist as NFTs. Guild of Guardians GOG $0.0008125 ▼ -5.4% is a fantasy action RPG for mobile, where you put together teams of Guardians, explore dungeons, gather resources and level up your characters. The network also hosts other RPGs, strategy games and collectible titles.
The OP Stack gives these studios a more standard base to build and maintain their games on. It won’t make any game more profitable or raise anyone’s rewards, and studios will still have to make games that bring players in and keep them playing. The one-second blocks and Ethereum-verified withdrawals come with slightly higher fees and a seven-day native withdrawal period. Players will see how that balance works out after the migration is finished in 2027.
