Off The Grid: The District 9 Director Made a Blockchain Shooter and It's Actually... Good?
By BCGamer —
Tags: off the grid, avalanche, avax
Look, I've reviewed a lot of blockchain games. Most of them make you feel like you're beta testing someone's homework assignment while they empty your wallet. Off The Grid is different. This is what happens when actual AAA developers make a game first and slap blockchain on it second – and then make the blockchain part completely optional.
Yes, you read that right. Optional blockchain. What a time to be alive.
Neill Blomkamp – the guy who directed District 9, Elysium, and Chappie – co-founded Gunzilla Games in 2020. Their first major release is Off The Grid, a free-to-play "Extraction Royale" that mashes up battle royale with extraction shooter mechanics in a grimy cyberpunk setting.
You drop onto Teardrop Island with 59 other contestants in what's essentially a televised bloodsport. You loot, you shoot, you swap out your cybernetic limbs mid-match for different abilities, and you try to extract with valuable gear. It's like if Warzone and Escape from Tarkov had a baby, then that baby got raised by the director of District 9 in a dystopian future.
The pitch: Fast-paced third-person combat, swappable cyberlimbs that give you different abilities, jetpacks, a 60+ hour narrative campaign (still in development), and a full item economy where you actually own your stuff.
The Blockchain Part (Don't Skip This)
Here's where Off The Grid does something almost unheard of in crypto gaming: the blockchain is entirely opt-in.
You can download the game right now on Steam, PlayStation, Xbox, or Epic and play hundreds of hours without ever touching crypto. No wallet required. No token purchases. No "connect your MetaMask" popups. Just a free-to-play shooter that happens to be pretty fun.
BUT – if you want to go deeper:
$GUN Token:
Launched March 31, 2025 on the GUNZ network (Avalanche L1)
Listed on Binance, Gate, KuCoin, MEXC
Current price: ~$0.02-0.03 (down from ~$0.11 at launch)
10 billion total supply, ~1.5B circulating
Market cap: ~$30-40M
The Optional NFT System:
Every item you loot can be converted to an NFT
Trade on the in-game GUNZ marketplace or OpenSea
Gunzilla pledges they will never sell NFTs directly – all NFTs come from player extraction
Your wallet is auto-created when you log in, but you never have to use it
The Revenue Model:
30% of game revenue goes to GUN token buybacks (with some burned)
$12/month Pro subscription unlocks marketplace features
Validator nodes for the network (if you're into that)
This is the first blockchain game I've seen that treats crypto like a bonus layer rather than the entire point of existence.
The Studio: Actually Legit
Gunzilla Games isn't some random crypto startup with a whitepaper and a dream.
The Team:
Neill Blomkamp (Chief Visionary Officer) – Oscar-nominated director
Team members from Ubisoft, EA, Blizzard, Crytek
Richard K. Morgan (author of Altered Carbon) worked on the narrative
Funding:
$76 million raised from Republic Capital, Animoca Brands, Jump Crypto, Avalanche's Blizzard Fund
GUNZ Foundation (nonprofit) managing the token with Delphi Ventures
The Receipts:
Game of the Year at GAM3 Awards 2024
12+ million wallet addresses on GUNZ testnet before mainnet
Available on all major platforms: PC (Steam + Epic), PS5, Xbox Series X|S, GeForce Now
Full crossplay support
This is a real studio with real money and real industry veterans. They spent 5 years building before launching the token. That's almost unheard of in crypto gaming.
How's the Game Actually Play?
The Good:
Gunplay is snappy and satisfying – faster TTK than Apex, more like Warzone
Cyberlimb swapping mid-match is genuinely innovative
Looks great – that Neill Blomkamp aesthetic hits different
Free-to-play with no crypto required
Regular updates (new maps, weapons, limbs coming)
Ranked mode launched December 2025
The Mixed:
Steam reviews are 54% positive ("Mixed") – not great, not terrible
~10K concurrent players on Steam – healthy but not massive
Still in Early Access – expect bugs and missing features
The 60-hour campaign is still coming
NFT elements are blocked on Steam/PlayStation/Xbox due to platform policies (only fully functional on Epic)
The Reality: It's a competent extraction shooter that's better than most games in this space. Is it Apex Legends? No. But it's genuinely fun, free to play, and the blockchain stuff isn't forced down your throat.
The Token Situation
Let's be real about $GUN:
The Rough Part:
Launched at ~$0.09-0.11, now trading around $0.02-0.03
That's roughly a 70-80% drop from launch
Some controversy around investor SAFT terms being modified
Token unlocks ongoing (next one: January 30, 2026)
The Bullish Case:
30% revenue buyback commitment creates sustained demand
Only 6% of supply was circulating at launch (deflationary design)
If the game grows, the token has actual utility
Platform is expanding – Technocore (mobile game) also uses GUNZ
The Realistic Take: If you're playing the game and earning GUN, that's basically free money for doing something you'd do anyway. If you're buying GUN as a speculative investment hoping for 100x... that's a different conversation with different risks.
The token's performance depends entirely on whether the game can build and maintain a player base. So far, the numbers are okay but not explosive.
Who Is This For?
Play Off The Grid if you:
Like extraction shooters and battle royales
Want a cyberpunk aesthetic without the Cyberpunk 2077 bugs
Are curious about blockchain gaming but don't want it forced on you
Enjoy actually owning your in-game items
Want to earn crypto while gaming (with realistic expectations)
Skip it if you:
The Bottom Line
Off The Grid is that rare thing: a blockchain game where the game came first.
Neill Blomkamp and Gunzilla Games built something that's actually fun to play, then added optional crypto features on top. You can spend 500 hours in this game and never think about blockchain once. Or you can go full degen and trade NFT cyberlimbs on OpenSea. Your choice.
The GUN token has had a rough ride price-wise, but the fundamentals are cleaner than most crypto games: real studio, real funding, real game, optional blockchain, 30% revenue buybacks. If the player base grows, the token probably follows.
It's free to play. Download it. Try it. Worst case, you played a decent shooter for a few hours. Best case, you find your new main game and collect some crypto on the side.
This is how blockchain gaming should work: game first, crypto optional, player choice respected.
Now go loot some cyberlimbs.
DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH. NOT A FINANCIAL ADVICE.