GG’s 2024 Game of the Year: Off the Grid

Off the Grid has only been available for a couple months, but it’s by far the best crypto game of the year—and it’s not even really close.

If we’re talking pure numbers, then Hamster Kombat blew most games out of the water by racking up 300 million players this summer. But the monotonous tap-to-earn mini app ultimately felt like a financialized gimmick thinly veiled as a game, and the resulting airdrop hardly justified the hype.

As for Off the Grid, the game impressed both Web2 and Web3-native gamers by offering up a legitimately great competitive shooter that rivals other AAA entries in the battle royale genre.

In doing so, it not only caught the attention of the livestreaming elite, but also opened their eyes to how the blockchain can improve gaming. That’s why Off the Grid is GG’s Game of the Year for 2024.

How did it do this? In many ways, it was accomplished by going against what the crypto gaming industry had come to expect, by not developing in public and gradually iterating from a very early stage. Instead, Gunzilla Games followed a more traditional “AAA” model of doing the bulk of the work away from prying eyes, only showcasing the game once it was mostly sharpened.

“You want to put your best foot forward—because if you burn that bridge, it’s gone,” Gunzilla Games Director of Web3 Theodore Agranat told Decrypt. “First impressions matter all throughout life, in everything.”

This helped its October early access launch make a huge splash and reach mainstream players, in a way unlike any crypto game launch we’ve seen. Its interesting blend of extraction elements within the tried-and-true battle royale genre, set in a dystopian reality TV show setting envisioned by “District 9” film director Neill Blomkamp, created the perfect storm.

As a result, famously brutal crypto game reviewer Jauwn called it one of the best (if not the best) crypto games he’s played. It also garnered plaudits from Web2 content creators like Warzone specialist IceManIsaac, who said it was “by far the most fun” he’d had playing a battle royale, while YouTuber Tomographic said he prefers Off the Grid to established hits like Apex Legends and Call of Duty: Warzone.

“The launch of the early access was extremely hype,” crypto gaming content creator Kyroh told Decrypt. “It was great seeing so many of the big streamers getting involved like Ninja, TimtheTatman, Scump, and more.”

Part of what fueled these positive reviews is the game’s unique cyberlimb mechanic, which allows players to swap out their arms, legs, and backpacks for robotic ones with special abilities. This has created tons of exciting viral clips, with players finding joy pushing the boundaries of the game or laughing when their cyberlimb is shot off—forcing them to crawl across the map.

“It’s one of the first Web3 games that has truly innovated on the battle royale genre, and I think people took notice of that,” Kyroh added. “I think it has the legs to become one of the best battle royales out there, given enough time to cook.”

Keeping crypto fair

Even with a sensational launch, some players have concerns about what will happen once the game’s crypto elements come to the surface—including the likes of Jauwn, IceManIsaac, and Tomographic. But Gunzilla says there’s nothing to worry about there, as the features are already baked into the game and running behind the scenes.

“Well, I’m happy to tell you that everything is already implemented. People just don’t openly see it,” Agranat explained. “It’s not like we’re hiding it. It’s just that it’s irrelevant.”

In its current state, the game is running on the GUNZ testnet—essentially a practice run of the real thing. New players have wallet addresses seamlessly made for them, extracted hexes are minted on-chain, in-game GUN tokens are actual crypto tokens, and items are transferred as NFTs between wallets when traded on the in-game marketplace—albeit, all on a testnet.

To some, this was enough to open their eyes to the possibility of blockchain gaming not being so bad—after years of crypto being vilified by many gamers. Most notably, former Counter-Strike pro player Michael “Shroud” Grzesiek said that tokenized, tradable items was a “pretty straightforward” concept, comparing it to Valve’s Steam marketplace, that he was surprised hadn’t caught on already.

It’s the next step that scares a lot of gamers. In Q1 2025 (estimated), the GUNZ network, built as a dedicated L1 on the Avalanche blockchain, will move to mainnet and the GUN token will be freely tradable. Testnet GUN balances will be wiped, but unique assets will be kept.

In theory, this means that anyone could invest real money to obtain GUN tokens and buy up all of the powerful weapons, preventing real players from using them. But Gunzilla has a plan.

In the case that a particular weapon is being hoarded by a single player, a new variation of the asset—with a cosmetic change, not a statistical power difference—will be entered into the game to combat this.

“Guess who decides which items drop on the island in the various different hexes, in the various loot boxes, right? It’s us, of course,” Agranat told Decrypt. “Nobody benefits at all from just deploying a million bucks into the marketplace.”

He explained that ultimately, all weapons available to purchase in the marketplace can be scavenged on the map. Even if you buy the weapons and cyberlimbs on the marketplace, you must still get enough in-game cash to purchase a loadout, which Agranat suggests could have led you to finding your desired weapons anyway.

However, some players would dispute this by saying that finding the funds for a loadout is too easy. This then becomes the key balancing challenge—rather than fighting marketplace whales.

“No pay-to-win ever, ever, ever,” he said, definitively.

That said, by getting the battle pass via the $11.99 monthly OTG Pro subscription, you’re able to trade your items and earn GUN tokens at a faster rate. This is clearly an advantage; Agranat admits as much.

But is it much more of an advantage than purchasing the latest Call of Duty game for $69.99, plus their seasonal battle pass offers for $9.99, to unlock weapons for Warzone?

“It does not give you any special privileges in the game. It does not give you a weapon that’s stronger than any other weapon,” Agranat explained. “Any weapon that exists in the game, in the whole universe—in terms of functionality of the weapon—you can find for free in an in-game session.”

For all of its strengths, Off the Grid still hasn’t solved the age-old crypto gaming problem of launching on consoles, as PlayStation and Xbox still haven’t embraced blockchain gaming. Ethereum battler Moonray recently revealed plans to launch on PlayStation 5, but will completely remove any blockchain elements, at least at launch.

Agranat confirmed to Decrypt that the game’s crypto elements will have to be “handled differently” and that more information will be released around mainnet launch. Ultimately, however, he confirmed that the console games will still be powered by the GUNZ network on the back end, even if user interactions with crypto might be different than on PC.

What’s next?

There is a lot that Gunzilla Games wants to have in place for Off the Grid and GUNZ before the mainnet launch early next year.

Agranat explained the game is set to launch a ranked mode and solo queue mode, and open up the remaining 80% of the map in a new battle royale mode while kicking off the storyline. Not only do they want these features live, but to be “top, top notch.”

That’s not to mention plans to onboard third-party developers to deploy other games on the GUNZ network, fueling a gaming ecosystem powered by the GUN token.

In a year in which crypto gaming was dominated by Telegram tapping games, it’s refreshing that Gunzilla Games is dedicated to making the industry respected by gamers. Tap-to-earn giant Hamster Kombat may have attracted hundreds of millions of players, but few appeared to be very happy by the time the token finally launched.

“I’m not taking credit away from the fact that they have definitely tapped into the current zeitgeist of people wanting quick things, social things, and something where they don’t need to think,” Agranat said. “But beyond that, it’s quite hilarious that 300 million people just tapped on something.”

Still, Gunzilla is willing to learn a lesson from this, with the studio considering creating its own Telegram mini app as a way to onboard people into the growing ecosystem. Agranat said this is “absolutely” on Gunzilla’s roadmap as a user acquisition funnel.

“We already are establishing best practices,” he said, in reference to the entire game rollout and developing strategies. “We want all of the games launching in our ecosystem to use these best practices, so that we are known for the chain that only has good, fun, and sustainable games.”

Perhaps in 2025, we’ll be hailing the next game launched on the GUNZ network, following those very same practices. Given how well Off the Grid landed, we can only hope.

Edited by Andrew Hayward