Director Neill Blomkamp’s first game is a Battle Royale shooter

Gunzilla Games, the studio full of AAA talent founded by director Neill Blomkamp (District 9, Elysium), has announced its first release. Off The Grid is a battle royale third-person shooter running on Unreal Engine 5 coming to Xbox Series X | S, PlayStation 5 and PC sometime next year.

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Unlike most games in the genre that focus on multiplayer action, Gunzilla claims it Off The Grid will be a story-first project. Players will log on to maps and complete story missions against 150 players, both real and AI-controlled. Players will be able to set the tone for missions, with certain actions wavering throughout the battle and affecting everyone on the map. This mix of story and multiplayer is apparently why the studio refers to it as a “battle royale 2.0.”

The teaser trailer does not show much, but it does reveal Off The Grids sci-fi and cyberpunk style, which makes sense. Blomkamp was once associated with one glory feature films and is best known for instruction District 9, both of which are in the sci-fi genre. However, the cyberpunk angle is new to the instructor.

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Of course, just the thought of Battle Royale is not enough to push a game in today’s market. With Fortnite and Call of Duty Warzone rule on the spot and lots of others nibbling at their heels, Off The Grid will have a fight uphill before that.

Players will have to see for themselves if Gunzilla Games has what it takes to play with the big boys and deliver a generational leap in the chosen shooting style that it seems to aim for with its self-proclaimed status as a “2.0” version of a Battle Royale. 2023 fills up with games that will finally push time past the Xbox One and PlayStation 4, but it remains to be seen if Off The Grid will be one of the titles leading the charge into a technologically advanced future.