After the blockchain-based video game ‘Off The Grid’ was released in early access on October 8, it has since climbed to the top of the charts becoming the ‘Most Popular Free-to-Play’ game.
The game is now sitting in the number one spot on the Epic Games Store charts, a first for a blockchain game.
The cyberpunk-themed battle royale was created by Gunzilla Games and it features an optional NFT (non-fungible tokens) element. This is built on an Avalanche subnet called GUNZ which the team behind the game describes as being “one of the first player-friendly crypto-economies in a AAA game.”
The hope is that this will “empower players by granting them complete ownership over their in-game items in the form of NFTs.”
While it brings crypto to gaming, the game is playable without buying NFTs. In an FAQ on Off The Grid’s website, they say: “If you want to try out NFTs, you can; if you don’t want to, you don’t have to.
“It’s entirely up to the player how they want to play the game…”
Off The Grid is now the Most Popular F2P game on @EpicGames!
🦾 Join the mayhem: https://t.co/hMwIudqM9Y pic.twitter.com/Sqltl4mr3P
— Off The Grid (@playoffthegrid) October 11, 2024
Although gamers have the choice, this inclusion opens up a whole new world to players who wouldn’t otherwise be aware of the crypto industry.
Blockchain video game connects the gaming industry with crypto
“Our partnership with Avalanche not only allows us to leverage its highly scalable and secure blockchain infrastructure but also ensures a seamless, low-latency gaming experience for our players,” explained Vlad Korolov, CEO and Co-Founder of Gunzilla Games in a blog post.
“By building GUNZ, we aim to revolutionize the gaming landscape with a transparent in-game asset management system by providing a number of market-standard features for game developers who are creating their economy on blockchain.”
Ahead of the launch, a partnership between Gunzilla Games and Ava Labs, which is the main developer of Avalanche, was announced. The founder and CEO of Ava Labs, Emin Gün Sirer, said: “Gunzilla Games has ambitious plans to migrate the best of Web2 gaming to Web3 while delivering the top-tier quality gamers demand…”
Featured Image: Via @playoffthegrid on X
