District 9 director’s battle royale game gets a new trailer, but relies on NFTs

Update: As Eurogamer point out, it turns out Off The Grid features NFTs, with tradeable in-game items handled by a blockchain marketplace. A different kind of future tech dystopia than the one depicted in the trailer…

Original story:

Off The Grid was announced earlier this year, the first product of District 9 director Neill Blomkamp’s partnership with Gunzilla Games. A new video released tonight offers a longer look at its setting, in the form of a Blomkamp directed in-engine cinematic, while also giving a sense of how the cyberpunk battle royale might feel to play. Watch it below.

The above video is the first part of an eight-part series that Gunzilla Games are calling Off The Grid Cinema. Each part will be directed by Blomkamp and will continue the story of the characters introduced in the video above, although that narrative isn’t what you’ll be playing in the eventual game. Instead it’s designed as a piece of worldbuilding, which introduces the cyberpunk setting and the robotics and weaponry you can expect to find within.

Off The Grid is a set on an island called Teardrop, somewhere in the Pacific ocean, where a space elevator has been built which gives humanity access to resources with which we’ve created advanced AI and robotic implants. Blomkamp isn’t the only recognisable name attached; writer Richard K. Morgan, author of Altered Carbon and Crysis, is also involved. A Pacific island with cybernetic implants does sound a bit Crysis-y.

The game, when it arrives, will have both singleplayer and multiplayer modes, with both taking place on the same map. The multiplayer is, as noted, a battle royale mode, with up to 150 players fighting together. Gunzilla say the game will launch in 2023, alongside a few other details on its official site.

While this is the most direct involvement Blomkamp has had with a game – he’s “Chief Visionary Officer” at Gunzilla – it’s not the first game-thing he’s done. He was long ago attached to direct a Halo movie, for example, and he’s directed trailers for games like Anthem.

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