Your Guide to Alpha Season 4

12 min readOct 7, 2024

Everything you need to know about navigating The Sandbox’s biggest event, all in one place.

Welcome to the Alpha Season 4 Guide

Get ready to dive into The Sandbox’s most exciting season yet! On October 9 at 2 PM UTC, we invite you to join us for an exciting 10-week in-platform event featuring over 100 unique experiences and 50 hours of gameplay! With content from 40 top brand partners alongside some of the best user-generated content, we’re bringing you a whole new galaxy of diverse adventures, challenges, and a SAND reward pool worth over $2.5 million USD!

Whether you’re a seasoned player or new to The Sandbox, this guide has everything you need — from gameplay tips to reward opportunities.

TL;DR

10 weeks, 100+ experiences with 50+ hours of gameplay from both brand partners and UGC creators.
30 level Battle Pass, with each level granting unique rewards.
Alpha Pass holders gain huge bonus benefits and bonus rewards.
Earning Ethos Points (EP) is the key to leveling up your Battle Pass and getting season rewards.
EP is primarily earned by completing quests in-game, with different types of quests granting different amounts of EP.
Bonus EP can be earned through daily challenges and referring friends.
Avatar Owners receive passive bonus EP and LAND Owners have the opportunity to earn bonus SAND.
Over 1,400 SAND and 170+ NFTs are available per player in season rewards, including wearables, equipment, and access to exclusive gated content.

Explore the sections below or use the Table of Contents to quickly find specific information. Let’s dive in!

Playing the Season

Content Schedule
Battle Pass
Alpha Pass
Earning Ethos Points
Bonus Ethos Points

Season Rewards

SAND Breakdown
NFTs Breakdown
LAND Owner Rewards

Playing The Season

1. Content Schedule

Alpha Season 4 will take place over ten weeks and feature over 100 unique experiences. These experiences will be progressively released over the full course of the season, with each day featuring the launch of a new experience (and sometimes several new experiences).

1a. Alpha Hub

The Alpha Hub will open on the first day of the season and remain open for its full duration. The Alpha Hub is a social gathering spot for all players to come together, interact, and have fun together. The hub is a jam-packed wonderland with many top brand partners having immersive areas within it. The hub also features its own quests to complete with Ethos Points to get your season started. Be sure to interact with the characters and content within the Alpha Hub for tips and tricks to help guide your season journey.

Throughout the season, certain NFT passes will unlock gated areas within the Alpha Hub in order for rewards to be claimed, so it’s best to explore and know your way around!

2. Battle Pass

Your journey through Alpha Season 4 is tracked within the Battle Pass, featuring 30 exciting levels to conquer. Completing each level grants a unique reward, including SAND and different types of NFTs. 15 of the levels have free rewards for all players, while the remaining 15 levels have rewards exclusively for Alpha Pass holders. You can access the Battle Pass both within the game client and on the web dashboard starting October 9 at 12pm UTC, when Alpha Season 4 launches.

3. Alpha Pass

As mentioned, each Battle Pass level you reach during Alpha Season 4 unlocks a reward, like SAND or exclusive NFTs. However, certain levels offer rewards exclusively for Alpha Pass holders, so obtaining an Alpha Pass will enhance your reward potential throughout the season.

Along with earning additional SAND within the Battle Pass itself, the Alpha Pass grants 10 Partner Pass NFTs that provide access to exclusive gated areas within experiences. This gated content contains special quests that unlock bonus SAND and Ethos Points (allowing you to level up faster). Alpha Pass holders will be able to earn 13x more SAND by progressing through the Battle Pass vs non-holders.

To get the Alpha Pass for Alpha Season 4, you can either:

Buy One: The Alpha Pass can be bought directly from The Sandbox Marketplace for 25 SAND. Players may only purchase the Alpha Pass once.
Win One via the Weekly Leaderboard Raffle: Each week, we’ll hold a raffle to select 500 winners of the Alpha Season 4 Alpha Pass. Each Ethos Point you have represents one raffle entry, so the more Ethos Points (EP) you collect and the higher you are on the leaderboard, the better your chances of winning!
Social Giveaways: Many social activities are planned during Alpha Season 4, so keep an eye on The Sandbox social media channels and live streams, as well as the social channels of Alpha Season 4 partners so you don’t miss any giveaway opportunities.

4. Earning Ethos Points (EP)

As with previous seasons, playing and progressing in Alpha Season 4 revolves around the collection of Ethos Points, or EP. Gathering EP allows you to level up your Battle Pass (and unlock rewards!).

You can collect EP in several ways, but the primary one is simply by playing and completing the different types of quests across all season experiences. There are three types of quests within Alpha Season 4:

Normal quests (marked by a yellow exclamation mark) = 1–5 EP
Hardcore quests (marked by a purple exclamation mark) = 15 EP
Adventure quests (marked by a blue exclamation mark) = 20 EP

Once you earn a certain amount of EP, you will progress to the next level in the Battle Pass. Completing level 1 requires 10 EP, level 2 requires 15 EP, and so on, up to level 30 (with 3,375 EP!).

As previously mentioned, EP is also used to determine your place on the season leaderboard. The more EP you have, the higher you climb, and the more chances you have to win an Alpha Pass each week via the leaderboard raffle!

5. Bonus Ethos Points

While completing quests within season experiences are the primary way to collect EP, Alpha Season 4 also introduces several powerful other ways to gain bonus EP and level up even faster.

5a. Daily Challenges

There are two daily challenges live throughout Alpha Season 4, the Experience of the Day and the Social Challenge. Both daily challenges reset daily and are unable to be retroactively completed once reset, so be sure to check back and complete them each day of the season to maximize your EP.

Experience of the Day

Each day when a new experience is released, it becomes the Experience of the Day for the first 24 hours it’s live. If you complete an Experience while it is the Experience of the Day, you’ll earn a bonus 15 EP. On days when multiple experiences are released, there will be multiple Experience of the Day bonuses available.

Social Challenge

Each day, a new Social Challenge will also be available. The Social Challenge will prompt you to visit a specific experience, find a landmark, take a screenshot of your avatar next to it, and post it to X. You will earn 25 additional EP for each social challenge you complete, so it really adds up!

You will be able to view the current Daily Challenges within the Alpha Season 4 web dashboard, as well as how much time you have left to complete them. For the Social Challenge, you will be able to connect your X account to The Sandbox to complete your post with one click directly from the dashboard.

Be sure to check back every day to complete the Daily Challenges and earn large amounts of bonus EP to level up faster and get more rewards!

5b. Refer Friends

You can earn bonus EP for inviting friends to play Alpha Season 4! For each friend that reaches Level 10 in the Battle Pass, you will receive an extra 50 EP (up to a max of 10 friends). You can stack up to 500 EP with the friend referral system, so invite your friends to play!

You can find your unique referral link on the Summary page of the Alpha Season 4 dashboard on the website.

5c. Owning an Avatar

As an avatar owner, you’ll passively earn bonus EP each week based on the rarest avatar in your wallet!

If you own multiple avatars of different rarities, you will only earn EP from the rarest avatar that you own.

For example:

If you own one Common avatar, one Rare, and one Epic, your highest avatar rank is Epic, and you receive 75 EP per week.
If you own three Legendary avatars, your highest avatar rank is Legendary, and you receive 160 EP per week.

The weekly bonus EP for avatar ownership will be distributed every Tuesday at 2pm UTC.

Don’t own an avatar? You can purchase an avatar here and start earning!

5d. Premium Quests

Certain experiences in Alpha Season 4 will have a Premium Area that is NFT-gated and contains Premium Quests. On average, each Premium Area contains around five quests (however, it can range from two to eight depending on the experience).

Quests inside the Premium Areas are considered “Normal” quests (yellow exclamation mark) but reward more EP than Normal quests found outside of Premium Areas (five EP inside, one EP outside).

To access these areas, you will either need a Partner Key NFT or a Category Key NFT.

Partner Keys

Partner Keys unlock access to the Premium Area inside the experiences of that Partner. For example, the “Ubisoft Partner Key” unlocks access to the Premium Area inside the Captain Lazerhawk experience and the Rabbids experience.

You can buy a Partner Key on The Sandbox Marketplace on the first day of Alpha Season 4 for 5 SAND and can expect to earn up to 30 bonus EP per key if you complete all the quests unlocked.

Category Keys

Category Keys unlock access to Premium Areas inside all experiences that fall into a specific category. There are 10 categories and each category includes nine to ten experiences:

Art
Culture
Entertainment
Fashion/Luxury
Gaming: Action
Gaming: Management
Gaming: Party Games
Lifestyle
Music
Sports

For example, the “Music Category Key” unlocks access to all ten experiences of the “Music” Category, such as experiences from Nuclear Blast, Agoria, Galantis, The Voice and more.

Category Keys will also be available on The Sandbox Marketplace on the first day of Alpha Season 4 for 20 SAND and you can expect to earn up to 300 bonus EP per key if you complete all the quests unlocked.

Season Rewards

Alpha Season 4 is filled with incredible rewards, with a SAND reward pool worth over $2.5 million USD and 170+ exclusive NFTs — from space-themed NFTs to passes, wearables, equipment, and more. Discover more about the rewards in Alpha Season 4 below.

1. SAND Reward Breakdown

There are numerous ways to be rewarded with SAND in Alpha Season 4.

All players will have the opportunity to earn 25 SAND within the Battle Pass, with Alpha Pass holders able to earn an additional 300 SAND.
LAND owners will have the opportunity to earn 80 SAND based on the collective EP gained by the community (more on this below).
A Final Raffle will be held on the last day of the season, in which 500 winners will be rewarded with 1,000 SAND each. As with the Weekly Leaderboard Raffle for Alpha Passes, the number of entries you have in the Final Raffle will be based on your leaderboard rank (i.e. how much total EP you have earned throughout the entire season, so be sure to collect as much EP as possible through quests, daily challenges, and friend referrals).

2. NFTs Reward Breakdown

2a. Space Helmets

Players can receive up to two space helmet NFTs during Alpha Season 4.

Gold Space Helmet: Eligible for players who pre-register ahead of Alpha Season 4. Pre-registered users will receive the Gold Space Helmet NFT in their claim section on the first day of the season. This NFT will no longer be available for additional players after the season launches.
White Space Helmet: All players who either create an account or log in during Alpha Season 4 will be able to claim this NFT in their claim section for the duration of the season. This NFT will no longer be available to be claimed after the season ends.

2b. Battle Pass NFTs

There are 20 NFTs you can earn by progressing through the Battle Pass (10 available to all players and 10 only for Alpha Pass holders).

10 exclusive equipment NFTs, each in collaboration with a unique top brand partner, will be available to all players within the Battle Pass. These equipment NFTs are all able to be worn and used in-game.
10 Partner Pass NFTs, each also in collaboration with a unique top brand partner, will be available only to Alpha Pass holders within the Battle Pass. Each Partner Pass NFT unlocks access to a gated area within the relevant Partner’s experience(s). This gated content contains special quests that unlock bonus SAND and Ethos Points (allowing you to level up faster)

2c. Adventure Quest NFTs

Not only do Adventure Quests grant the most Ethos Points of any quest type (20 EP each!), you’ll also be rewarded with special branded NFTs by completing the Adventure Quests available across the 40 partner experiences of Alpha Season 4! Like the equipment NFTs granted within the Battle Pass, the NFTs rewarded from Adventure Quests are also able to be worn and used in-game. Look for quests marked with a blue “!” in-game to start your adventure and unlock special rewards.

2d. Marketplace NFTs

110 Partner NFTs from 40 brand partner collections will be available for sale during Alpha Season 4 in very limited quantities. Each collection will be released the day their associated experience goes live and can be purchased in The Sandbox Marketplace! Many of the collections will be designed as part of a set to match the branded NFTs rewarded in the Battle Pass and by Adventure Quests, so be sure to complete and wear your favorite full NFT sets in-game.

3. LAND Owner Rewards

LAND owners will earn bonus rewards based on the Ethos Points gained by the community as a whole during Alpha Season 4. There are four community milestones between 125K to 500K collective EP, and when each is reached, LAND owners will be able to claim LAND Owner Hub Pass NFTs that unlock access to special rooms in the Alpha Hub. Each room holds a SAND Chest with 20 SAND, meaning LAND owners can earn up to an additional 80 SAND throughout the season.

If you haven’t already, it’s the perfect time to get your first LAND!

Our past Alpha Seasons have represented significant milestones for The Sandbox and for the realization of the metaverse. Alpha Season 4 will be bigger and better than ever, with some of the biggest, most beloved brands coming together to create immersive, rewarding experiences right next to those created by our global end user community. We’re incredibly excited for our growing community to join us for this epic ten-week event.

Be sure to pre-register to get your Gold Space Helmet NFT and see you for the launch of Alpha Season 4 on October 9 at 2pm UTC!