Off Thanks to some clever Twitch campaigns with large streamers and the fact that it’s an entertaining game, The Gird appears to be the most recent virtually unknown game to gain a sizable following after debut. What many of those streamers fail to mention, though, is that this is a crypto-based game with plans to include NFTs in the future. Maybe that’s a good thing.
Off The Grid is a brand-new Early Access battle royale shooter that combines elements of an extraction shooter, making it somewhat of a hybrid of Escape From Tarkov and Apex Legends. It’s shockingly good for a game that almost no one had heard of before it went live in Early Access this week. It has great movement and some entertaining shooting mechanics.
There are a few odd design decisions, including the extremely narrow map and the absence of any real visual indication when you are shot, but these may be easily addressed to become Off the Grid the next major battle royale game.
With hundreds of thousands of players tuning in, Off The Grid has become one of the most streamed games on Twitch in recent days thanks to a relationship with streamer Tyler “Ninja” Blevins, who has a stake in the game, and advertising arrangements with numerous other well-known figures. It has also surpassed titles like League of Legends, Rainbow Six Siege, and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds to rank among the top 12 most played games on the Epic Games Store.
The fact that Off The Grid is a blockchain-based game with future intentions to integrate NFTs and establish a cryptocurrency-based marketplace, however, appears to be something that is being kept under wraps.
How does it works?
The crypto functionality is now absent, and considering the somewhat surprising success, it wouldn’t be shocking if it were postponed for a long time to avoid upsetting the crowd, who generally have a negative opinion of crypto in games.
But the way the development team has previously discussed the implementation doesn’t sound all that bad. Actually, it sounds exactly like how Counter-Strike and other games’ Steam Marketplace operates, with the exception that blockchain-based transactions are used. Since you can cash out your Steam balance using third-party websites and CS skins, the suggested blockchain implementation in Off The Gird would essentially work in the same way and you wouldn’t need to use a dubious trading site.
In the area of cryptocurrency games, there have been some very terrible money grabs, but this one doesn’t sound like one. More importantly, there is a fun game below it that is completely free to play, with the blockchain stuff appearing to be an optional addition. When these features are introduced, there will undoubtedly be some criticism, but in my opinion, this is a crypto game that has the potential to succeed.
