I used to be known as a “regurgitated cum bubble” inside the first minutes of booting up Gunzilla’s free-to-play battle royale shooter, Off The Grid. And the crass insult wasn’t shouted by one other participant, however by an obnoxious soldier dude who’s the sport’s announcer. Issues solely bought worse and weirder from there.
I didn’t know what to anticipate when booting up Off The Grid. However since launching in early entry in October 2024, the sport has been marketed closely on the PlayStation Retailer and has now leapt to Steam after beforehand being unique to the Epic Recreation Retailer on PC. To assist promote Off The Grid’s Steam launch, websites like Polygon, IGN, and even Kotaku itself ran sponsored posts concerning the sport. These posts championed its frequent updates, “sturdy following,” and closely talked about that District 9 director Neill Blomkamp helped create Off The Grid’s world. So, I made a decision to lastly take a look at OTG, as the youngsters name it, and see what this sport is all about!
After an admittedly well-produced intro video, I used to be launched to Grasp Sergeant Cobra, maybe essentially the most annoying online game man I’ve ever met. After his beautiful “cum bubble” insult, he defined the fundamental premise of Off The Grid. It’s a third-person battle royale wherein you attempt to survive whereas additionally discovering invaluable loot which you can extract mid-game and promote to different gamers later. Extra on that in a bit.
So, what’s Off The Grid?
Then the sport tossed me right into a match. And sadly, Cobra was nonetheless in my ear, yelling at me, saying issues like: “Come on, you chickenshit pussies!” and “Your secure zone is collapsing.” And better of all, you get to listen to these identical insults time and again. Enjoyable stuff. So comfortable I’m right here.
The precise gameplay of Off The Grid isn’t groundbreaking. You bounce out of a airplane, land on a map, discover weapons and loot, combat different gamers, and hopefully find yourself the final group standing. In my first match, many of the gamers I encountered gave the impression to be bots. Trying on-line, this appears to be a typical downside. Additionally trying on-line, I noticed numerous gamers fearful the sport was going to get shut down quickly as a result of it takes a very long time to search out matches, and infrequently you get paired with bots.
Once I lastly bumped into an actual participant, or what gave the impression to be an actual participant, they have been dressed like Donald Trump. Trump and Kamala Harris are skins you should purchase within the sport’s retailer. Trump’s pores and skin has a “No Woke” sticker. After taking part in a number of matches, I noticed numerous actual gamers operating round within the Trump pores and skin. I’ll allow you to resolve what which means about Off The Grid’s playerbase.
After a number of hours of profitable and dropping, I had discovered what Off The Grid was: It’s a so-so third-person battle royale with a number of neat concepts buried beneath a ton of rubbish and bullshit. Gunplay feels snappy sufficient, however motion feels floaty in a approach that makes it onerous to manage my character. Having the ability to swap out your limbs on the fly with new ones you discover or loot off lifeless gamers is cool, and among the limbs have distinctive power-ups that may assist. Sadly, most of my time in Off The Grid was spent in search of different gamers to combat and ready for matches to start out.
Keep in mind NFTs? Gunzilla hopes not
In all these beforehand talked about sponsored posts promoting the sport, all of them did not reveal that that is an NFT/blockchain sport. Keep in mind how I discussed which you can extract loot throughout matches and promote it to different gamers? Effectively, it’s all NFTs, child.
I earned a uncommon arm and bought it for 60 GUN (Gunzilla’s cryptotoken) to a different participant. Every merchandise has a novel code, and it appears there’s a finite quantity accessible. Once I accomplished my sale, I checked my transaction historical past, and it was labeled as being a part of my “GUNZ Pockets.” Nonetheless, as a result of I’m on Xbox Sequence X/S, I don’t even have entry to my GUNZ Pockets or the GUN tokens inside it. This appears to be as a result of Xbox, PlayStation, and Valve gained’t permit Gunzilla to tie the precise blockchain into the sport. (On the Epic Retailer, all of that stuff is useful and lively within the sport.) I don’t know what this implies for the GUN tokens that I earned from promoting the arm. Can I ever money them out for actual {dollars}? Will any user-sold objects I purchase on Xbox be accessible in future Gunzilla video games?
Gunzilla, the corporate that now owns Recreation Informer, has tried to downplay all of this NFT/Blockchain crap regardless of chopping offers with firms within the trade. That appears to be as a result of they perceive that lots of people hate all that crap. In an FAQ posted on Off The Grid’s official web site, they reply to folks asking if that is an NFT sport:
Off The Grid shouldn’t be an NFT sport. It’s a battle royale sport with an non-compulsory NFT aspect. If you wish to check out NFTs, you may; for those who don’t wish to, you don’t should. It’s completely as much as the participant how they wish to play the sport, and the sport is playable with out dipping into NFTs.
And that’s true, within the sense which you can play video games and by no means do something with the loot you earn from matches. However that appears to be an enormous a part of the gameplay loop constructed into Off The Grid, so ignoring NFTs and the participant market looks like a nasty solution to expertise the sport.
In fact, the true query is: Do you wish to expertise Off The Grid? If we ignore the NFT shit, the precise sport isn’t a lot to jot down house about. I struggled to search out actual gamers each earlier than the match began and after I used to be within the sport. Fight is okay, but when I’m going to play a third-person battle royale, I’d somewhat play Fortnite. And the sport’s complete perspective simply sucks. Being insulted time and again by the announcer will get outdated quick, and each inch of the sport is stuffed with the sort of edgy jokes that 13-year-olds repeat after studying a brand new swear phrase.
So, yeah, I suppose if you wish to grind away at incomes pretend cash on the blockchain by farming uncommon loot in a mediocre third-person shooter, you could be the audience for Off The Grid. For everybody else, throw a dart at a board coated in different battle royale video games and play the one you hit as a substitute. On the very least, you gained’t should take care of gamers dressed as Donald Trump.
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