Early 2025 saw the battle royale genre welcome its latest contender: Off The Grid.

Now available in early access on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S, this free-to-play (F2P) title puts a unique spin on the familiar battle royale formula.

This web3 game review covers everything worth knowing about Off The Grid—from basic gameplay to advanced strategies—whilst exploring its standout features and offering an honest take on its current early access state.

Key Insights

• Off The Grid blends classic battle royale mechanics with extraction shooter elements
• The game offers optional NFTs and the proprietary GUNZ cryptocurrency support a player-driven economy
• Developed under filmmaker Neill Blomkamp’s creative vision, the game delivers rich cyberpunk aesthetics
• Whilst praised for innovative features, OTG struggled with gameplay balance, fairness, and a few others

Where does Off The Grid takes place?

Teardrop Island serves as the backdrop for this dystopian cyberpunk world, where 150 players battle it out in Off The Grid with mechanics that genuinely stand apart from the competition.

Neill Blomkamp’s creative direction adds welcome depth to the game’s lore. The District 9 filmmaker brings a distinct vision to both narrative and aesthetics.

Alongside writer Richard K. Morgan, Blomkamp has crafted a satirical cyberpunk universe where mega-corporations vie for dominance, whilst players take on roles as enhanced mercenaries known as “Zeros.”

But let’s be honest—what always draws the most attention in any Off The Grid game review is the optional blockchain integration.

The game features NFTs and a native cryptocurrency called GUNZ, enabling players to truly own their in-game assets. These are verified through Gunzilla Games’ GUNZ blockchain and GUN token—a feature that has stirred heated debates among players and critics alike.

Is Off The Grid a battle royale or an extraction shooter?

The Off The Grid crypto game blends traditional battle royale gameplay with extraction shooter elements, resulting in an experience that feels both familiar and surprisingly fresh.

Two core modes are available:

• Battle Royale: Drop onto Teardrop Island with 149 other players, scramble for loot, and fight to be the last one standing. The “Overloaded Zone” mechanic shrinks the playable area, forcing survivors into tighter skirmishes as the match progresses.
• Extraction Royale: A more contained mode featuring 60 players on a smaller map. The emphasis here shifts from pure survival to collecting resources and executing strategic extractions.

Combat plays out in third-person, offering wider field awareness than first-person shooters. Weapons include assault rifles, SMGs, snipers, and shotguns, all organised into colour-coded rarity tiers: white, green, blue, and purple. Attachments found throughout the map significantly enhance weapon effectiveness.

Health regenerates over time, but armour requires armour plates to refill. Downed teammates can be revived, and eliminated players can return to the fight if bought back using the in-game currency called Rips.

One of the most original elements in the game—and a highlight in this Off The Grid review—is the Cyberlimb system.

Each match begins with cybernetic enhancements already equipped, but players can find and swap out arms and legs throughout the game. These cyberlimbs unlock powerful abilities, ranging from rocket launchers and air strikes to grappling hooks and temporary invisibility. With more than 30 options available, gameplay variety is immense.

Another standout feature is Hexes—special loot boxes that contain permanent progression items such as weapons, skins, and cyberlimbs. To claim them, players must locate Hextractor stations across the map.

Triggering an extraction initiates a countdown visible to everyone, often leading to intense defensive showdowns, similar to other extraction shooters on Immutable. Extracted Hexes must then be decrypted using GUN cryptocurrency to reveal their contents—adding further utility to the token.

How do I get started in the Off The Grid crypto game?

No Off The Grid game review is complete without a basic tutorial—so here’s how to get started.

Initial Setup and Controls

The game follows standard third-person shooter controls, but mastering movement—especially the jetpack—is essential for survival.

On PC, press Spacebar mid-air to activate the jetpack. Hold W to pitch downward for faster movement, or S to descend vertically. Horizontal angles allow for extended gliding, which is key when escaping the Overloaded Zone.

For controller users:

• Set horizontal look/aim sensitivity to roughly double the vertical (to match the 16×9 screen ratio)
• Adjust dead zone settings to around 0.10 to reduce input delay
• Reassign “shoulder swap” to the right stick click for quicker reactions

Your First Matches

Start with Extraction Royale—its smaller map and clearer objectives make it more manageable for new players.

When dropping in, aim for loot-heavy zones: clusters of buildings or mid-tier points of interest. Some players target mission-related areas for quick gear, whilst others prefer quieter spots for less contested looting.

Once boots hit the ground, secure weapons, armour, and cyberlimbs immediately. Rarity matters—purple gear significantly outperforms white. Armour kits are essential for staying alive, and testing different cyberlimbs helps refine your playstyle.

In early match stages, an automatic respawn system gives you a second chance if a teammate stays alive. Later on, teams must use Redeployment Terminals and spend Rips to bring back fallen members.

Mastering Cyberlimbs: Your Key to Victory

Cyberlimbs are what separate rookies from veterans in Off The Grid. They come in two categories—arms and legs—each with distinct roles:

• Arm Cyberlimbs: Offer offensive and utility abilities like rocket launchers, enemy scanners, or air strikes.
• Leg Cyberlimbs: Enhance movement, enabling faster sprinting, higher jumps, or specialised traversal tools.

Beginners should prioritise movement upgrades. “Roadrunner” legs increase sprint speed, “Leapers” provide powerful vertical mobility, and grappling hook arms grant fast horizontal and vertical traversal.

These mobility tools boost survival by improving escape routes and positional advantage.

Each cyberlimb can contain up to three abilities, offering deep customisation. As you play Off The Grid, keep track of which limbs suit your combat style and learn how to adapt combinations to fit different challenges across the map.

How can I improve performance in Off The Grid?

Built on Unreal Engine 5, Off The Grid delivers a visually rich cyberpunk experience—neon-lit skylines, high-tech environments, and 3D-scanned character models contribute to its immersive design. Some players even gain exclusive content through OpenSea’s partnered in-game skin drops.

But such visual ambition has its drawbacks. Many players, especially those with mid-range systems, report frame drops and inconsistent performance. For smoother gameplay, try these tweaks:

• Lower settings for Anti-Aliasing, Texture Quality, Shadow Quality, Effects Quality, Global Illumination, Post Processing, Reflections, and Foliage
• Enable FSR 3.0 (AMD) or DLSS (NVIDIA)
• Set DLSS to Balanced or Performance mode for better frame rates

What are NFTs and GUNZ used for in Off The Grid?

The game’s most distinctive—and divisive—feature is its blockchain integration.

NFTs represent in-game assets like weapons, cosmetics, and loot, providing players with true digital ownership. Some are available via the Off The Grid Black Market.

GUNZ tokens, which run on the Avalanche subnet as ERC-20 tokens, serve as the primary currency in the dedicated GUNZ NFT marketplace. Players can buy and sell in-game NFTs—potentially for real-world value.

Importantly, blockchain features remain entirely optional. Players can enjoy all core gameplay without touching NFTs or crypto, making the game more accessible for traditional gamers.

Another unique layer involves Nodes—virtual validators that decrypt extracted Hexes and mint them as NFTs. These Nodes, largely sold to early supporters, earn GUNZ tokens through validation, creating an additional player-driven economic loop.

Web3 wallet integration allows players to manage assets across platforms, adding flexibility to GUNZ and NFT management. However, long-term implications for game balance and economic sustainability remain uncertain.

What are people saying about Off The Grid?

As with any early access title, feedback on Off The Grid is mixed.

Initial impressions were mostly positive—players praised its originality, cyberlimb system, smooth traversal, and hybrid gameplay loop. But over time, key concerns emerged:

• Cheating: Rampant cheating, especially through devices like Cronus, has undermined fair play
• Balance Issues: Certain cyberlimbs and weapons feel disproportionately strong
• Technical Problems: Performance and optimisation remain ongoing frustrations
• Matchmaking Headaches: Solo players often face full squads, leading to uneven matchups
• Developer Focus: Some feel the devs prioritise elite players’ feedback over the average user base
• Blockchain Skepticism: Many still question the value and impact of the crypto integration

Despite these issues, the game retains a loyal player base. Frequent updates suggest that developers are actively working to improve the experience.

Is Off The Grid worth playing?

At its core, Off The Grid brings some genuine innovation to the crowded battle royale field.

Its cyberlimb system, immersive movement mechanics, and cyberpunk worldbuilding offer a fresh take. For crypto-curious players, its optional blockchain integration adds another layer, though its current impact remains debatable.

Still, the game faces serious challenges: performance woes, overpowered gear, and a steep learning curve could alienate newcomers. Unchecked cheating and matchmaking problems also need urgent attention.

That said, for battle royale fans looking for something new, Off The Grid is well worth trying—especially since it’s free. There’s real promise here, and if the developers follow through, it could evolve into a standout title.

Whether this Off The Grid game review proves it can become “Crypto Game of the Year” remains to be seen. Blockchain is just one part of a broader ecosystem. The game’s long-term success will depend on how well Gunzilla tackles anti-cheat systems, performance issues, and game balance.

For now, Off The Grid stands as a bold experiment with a lot of potential—one that’s worth being part of as it continues to develop.

Web3 game studios are creating new blockchain-based titles every single day. With Off The Grid, one studio made one of the most impactful Web3 games to date. That studio is Gunzilla Games.

Emerging from relative obscurity into one of the hottest names in the blockchain gaming space, Gunzilla Games continues to lead the way in mainstream Web3 gaming, with Off The Grid continuing to find success on a wide range of platforms.

Gunzilla Games have etched their name into history – but how did Off The Grid come about, what are they working on right now, and what can we expect in future?

Here’s our complete guide to Gunzilla Games.

Key Insights

• Founded in 2020 by an experienced and talented team of games industry veterans
• Secured over $100 million USD in funding from leading venture capital firms and industry figures
• Their debut title Off The Grid entered early access in October 2024, available on all major platforms
• $GUN released in March 2025, becoming the official ecosystem token of Gunzilla Games
• Gunzilla aims to continue to grow Off The Grid, and expanding their reach into mainstream gaming audiences

What is Gunzilla Games?

Gunzilla Games was founded in March 2020, bringing together a wide range of experience in both the gaming and entertainment industries.

Vlad Korolev serves as CEO – a career veteran in both fintech and gaming, being a co-founder of PLINK and developer on Warface. He’s joined by Alexander Zoll as Chief Strategy Officer, who had previously served as studio lead at Crytek Kyiv.

The two are joined by Neill Blomkamp as Chief Creative Officer – a renowned filmmaker who counts District 9, Elysium and Chappie amongst his portfolio. Blomkamp brings Hollywood-level storytelling and visuals to Gunzilla – accompanied by the story of Richard K. Morgan and Olivier Henriot, and the sound of Grammy Award-winning composer Lorne Balfe.

The company operates from a trio of global studios:

• Frankfurt, Germany: The company HQ, and their home of art, design and marketing
• Kyiv, Ukraine: Responsible for operations, core programming, and support roles
• London, UK: Responsible for strategy and core business functions

Since their foundation, Gunzilla Games have raised over $100 million USD to pursue their vision for the future of gaming.

Their journey began with $25 million in funding from GameGroove – a company created by Zoll and Korolev. Their first funding round in August 2022 saw an additional $46 million enter the pot from names such as Republic Capital, Griffin Gaming Partners and Animoca Brands. This was joined by a further $30 million in 2023, co-led by CoinFund and Avalanche’s Blizzard Fund – with the latter becoming key to their future operations.

What is Off The Grid?

Off The Grid is the flagship title of Gunzilla Games. Announced in May 2022, and entering early access in October 2024.

Set in the dystopian cyberpunk backdrop of Teardrop Island, the game mixes futuristic technology and gritty aesthetics with a humorous outlook. Combining the thrill of an extraction royale with battle royale mechanics in a third-person perspective, the game became a big hit on PS5, Xbox Series X/S and PC.

Alongside the gripping PvP gameplay, Off The Grid incorporates a concurrent 60-hour narrative campaign, allowing playing to dive more into the lore of the game and the reality of your surroundings.

Since its launch, Off The Grid has achieved remarkable success as unquestionably the biggest blockchain game to date, with over 12 million sign-ups, 120,000 concurrent viewers on Twitch during peak periods, and more than 500,000 daily active users in its first month.

What is GUNZ?

GUNZ is a custom sub-net of Avalanche, and is the blockchain which powers all of Off The Grid‘s on-chain features.

Powered by the $GUN token, GUNZ facilitates the system that allows in-game items to be NFTs. Players can own these digital items independent of the Off The Grid game, and can freely buy, sell and trade these items with other players.

Despite its benefits, GUNZ is totally optional for players to engage with. If you wish to play Off The Grid without any of the blockchain-based features, you can do so – helping the game to build an audience within traditional gaming circles.

The integration of GUNZ hasn’t been without controversy. Several high-profile creators believe that Gunzilla Games downplayed the impact that NFT and crypto integration would have on Off The Grid and its long-term sustainability.

What’s next for Gunzilla Games?

Gunzilla’s immediate focus is on growing and expanding the Off The Grid ecosystem.

The team have held multiple high-profile events so far, such as the $600,000 All-Stars Invitational, and the regular Clash For Cash tournaments that offered daily prizes of $3,000.

The GUNZ platform is also expected to expand its functionality, with the release of a SDK for developers, additional funding expectations, and further developments for the $GUN economy.

Although Gunzilla Games is just 5 years old, and its flagship game Off The Grid has been available for less than 12 months, they’ve already had a significant impact on the blockchain gaming industry. Their success so far has been an inspiration to many, and with their continued success and funding, they’ll remain a major player to watch in the years to come.

Gunzilla Games has shared a detailed update on the state of its GUNZ blockchain ecosystem, coinciding with preparations for the upcoming Steam release of its multiplayer shooter—Off The Grid. The studio has initiated a wave-based migration of players to mainnet, marking a significant shift toward on-chain asset ownership within its gaming platform.

This update forms part of a new monthly reporting initiative by Gunzilla, aimed at providing clearer insight into development milestones, ecosystem activity, and regulatory progress. According to the studio, June marked the start of a “new phase of growth” for the GUNZ ecosystem following months of limited public communication.

Alongside the blockchain developments, Off The Grid has received several gameplay updates and is confirmed to be launching on Steam in July. Due to Steam’s current policies on blockchain integration, the PC version will use testnet rather than mainnet features for the time being.

Gunzilla Games is also finalising regulatory licensing and expanding the reach of its token through a new partnership, all of which will feed into the studio’s broader strategy to establish a compliant, scalable blockchain gaming platform.

Key Insights

• 21,000 players have been migrated from testnet to mainnet, with full migration planned
• Asset activity on mainnet includes over 413,000 HEX decodings and $12.9 million in $GUN volume
• Validator NFTs are now live, with the majority of 10,000 nodes operational
• VASP licensing is nearing completion, which will enable broader access to mainnet features
• Off The Grid launches on Steam in July 2025, using testnet to comply with platform policies
• OTG Gameplay updates include new arenas, a new weapon, and changes to weapon handling
• A web3-focused roadmap and further announcements are expected starting July 4

What’s happening in the GUNZ ecosystem?

Gunzilla Games has begun migrating players to the GUNZ mainnet, allowing them to retain and manage their in-game assets on-chain. The first 21,000 users have already been transitioned, with plans to eventually move all 17.3 million wallets. This migration is being carried out gradually to meet compliance standards and monitor any technical issues. With this shift, users gain permanent ownership of their items, including weapons, skins, and earned loot. In terms of mainnet activity, the studio reports 413,000 in-game asset decodings and a total marketplace volume of $12.9 million in $GUN tokens so far.

The company is also close to securing its Virtual Asset Service Provider (VASP) licence. Once granted, this will allow Gunzilla to open up mainnet access more broadly to its player base.

Additionally, Validator NFTs—which function as nodes in the ecosystem—have also gone live with most of the 10,000 available nodes already active and producing in-game assets. More information about how validator rewards will scale is expected in future reports.

In terms of infrastructure expansion, Gunzilla has entered a partnership with decentralised exchange Blackhole to introduce $GUN token pools on Avalanche, though the launch date has not yet been announced.

What’s new in Off The Grid?

Off The Grid—Gunzilla’s extraction-based multiplayer shooter—is scheduled to arrive on Steam in July. However, because of Steam’s policy on blockchain content, the PC version will operate using the testnet version of GUNZ. Blockchain features will remain active on console platforms, where they have already been integrated on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S.

In the June development report, Gunzilla also outlined several gameplay changes including a new 20-player free-for-all deathmatch mode and four additional arenas: Marshlands, Midtown Harbour, Stork City, and Ocio. A new melee weapon, the Cyberlancer, has also been added.

The update also introduced gyro aiming support for PC and PS5 users, along with the option to toggle between first- and third-person scopes for certain optics.

Finally, all weapon classes have undergone changes to recoil and spread behaviour, aiming to rebalance time-to-kill values and ammo dynamics. The Kestrel sniper rifle now features new attachments and improved fire rate, whilst other weapons such as the AZV100 have been adjusted for balance.

What’s next for the Gunzilla Games?

Gunzilla plans to publish a new web3-focused development roadmap in the coming weeks, detailing upcoming features and updates across the GUNZ ecosystem. The studio also indicated that additional announcements and feature reveals will begin from 4 July onwards.

Player assets earned during testnet participation are expected to carry over once full migration to mainnet is complete.

In the meantime, Off The Grid remains available in early access for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC devices.

I have a new OpenSim grid stats report coming out tomorrow, so I’ve been surfing OpenSim grid websites these last couple of days, looking for errant stats pages. And that means that I’ve been looking at a lot of grid home pages.

And there are some really pretty ones out there! And some grids truly use their websites to show off what they’ve got to offer.

But most grids, I’m afraid, miss the mark. If you’re a public grid and want to attract traffic, or a commercial grid looking to rent out land, you’re leaving money on the table by not having these five elements on your home page.

A beautiful picture that shows people enjoying your grid

A picture is worth a thousand words, and when it comes to your OpenSim grid’s website, the right picture can make all the difference. As I browsed through dozens of grid home pages this week, I was struck by how few of them featured images of people enjoying themselves. In fact, I could only find four examples, and two were avatars from other platforms, not actual grid residents.

This is a missed opportunity. Your grid’s home page is the perfect place to showcase the fun and excitement that awaits visitors. Even if your grid is brand new, you can still create engaging images. Pose some alts in dance animations, have them chatting in a cafe, building a house, working in a garden, or raising farm animals. The possibilities are endless.

Too often, grid slideshows and images focus on empty spaces — a deserted dance floor, a vacant cafe, a barren island, or a lonely rock. Sure, sometimes it’s a pretty rock, but it’s still just an empty landscape. The same goes for pictures of museums or shopping areas — if they’re devoid of people, they look like ghost towns.

By featuring images of empty spaces, you’re sending a subconscious message to potential visitors: “Our grid is an empty wasteland.” That’s not the impression you want to make. Instead, show people having a great time on your grid. Capture the excitement of a fashion show, the energy of a rock concert, or the camaraderie of a community event.

If you don’t have a skilled photographer on your grid, consider reaching out to the OpenSim community. There are plenty of talented photographers who would be happy to take some great shots of people enjoying your grid.

One of the grids that featured prominent images of people enjoying themselves in their world was the New Life Italy grid.

I’m not saying that every grid should put a picture of a dance floor on their home page. OpenSim grids would all look pretty much identical if everybody did this. Hopefully, your grid has more to offer than just dancing, or, if there is dancing, maybe it’s in a particularly special location? And when taking pictures of people enjoying themselves, try to have at least one closeup of an avatar’s happy face.

Again, I’m using an illustration from New Life Italy‘s home page here:

My theory is that many grid owners and website managers are technologists at heart. They prefer to work by themselves.

You, as a technologist, might enjoy a home page that is full of dense text, statistics, details of your server configurations, and capacity utilization charts. But you target audience doesn’t. If they did, they would be running their own grids — they wouldn’t need to rent land from you!

Sure, a percentage of your customers will also be loners, or people who might like a little quiet time once in a while. But most people are going to come to a social grid to socialize.

The bottom line is this: Don’t make it hard for potential visitors to imagine themselves having fun on your grid. Show them what they’re missing with vibrant, engaging images of people enjoying all that your world has to offer.

And this picture should be the main focal point of your home page. The first thing people think of when they see your site should be, “This grid is fun. I want to be there.”

How to get there

Okay, so somebody’s come to your website and thought to themselves, “Oh my God, the people in this picture are having so much fun. I want to join them. How do I get there?”

This brings us to the next essential element your OpenSim grid website needs: clear and easy instructions for accessing your grid.

For most existing OpenSim users, the simplest way to get users to come to your grid is via hypergrid. Give them your login URI as plain text that they can copy and paste into their viewer. Make sure this login URI is prominently displayed and easy to find on your homepage.

Like at the top of the DigiWorldz home page here:

Avoid using graphic images for your login URI, as this makes it harder for users to copy the text.

I am always surprised by how often I can’t find the grid’s login URI or hypergrid address at all on the home page and have to hunt around for it.

For people who are new to OpenSim, you’ll want to guide them through the process of creating an avatar and accessing your grid. Consider adding a button or link that says something like “New to OpenSim? Start here!” This should lead to a page with step-by-step instructions for creating an account, downloading a viewer, and logging into your grid.

The goal is to make the process of accessing your grid as simple and intuitive as possible. If you can, try to get someone who’s never been to OpenSim before to follow your instructions.

Remember, every extra click or step you require is an opportunity for potential visitors to get frustrated or distracted and give up.

Rent land

For most commercial grids, renting land is a primary revenue source. The land rental options should be very easy to see on your website. Nobody should hunt around for it. This isn’t something to bury in a sub-menu or hide at the bottom of a long home page.

Unfortunately, many grids make renting land far more complicated than it needs to be. They require users to create new user accounts, or provide technical details like region coordinates and specific server configurations. Unless someone is an experienced OpenSim user or grid owner, they probably won’t know this information off the top of their head. And if they do know exactly how many cores and RAM they need — well, they don’t need you, do they? They can run their own grid, thank you very much.

Each time someone has to make a decision, or look something up, half the time they’re going to say, “I’ll do that later.” And they never do it later. Instead, you will lose about half you potential customers with every additional click, every new page, every form field they have to fill out. Pretend you’re a new customer. How many clicks will it take someone before they can finally send you money? How many decisions do they have to make?

So, if, say, you have 100 visitors who come to your website thinking of getting a region, and six steps to go through before they can buy land — you’ll lose 50 people at the first step, another 25 at the second step, 12 more at the third step, another six at the fourth step, three at the fifth step. And you’ll have just one or two people left, if you’re lucky. You just wasted 99 potential customers. Sure, some of them might come back. Eventually. When they remember. Or they might forget that they wanted to get a region. Or get a region somewhere else. Or they’ll go to Second Life, because at least they know how to buy land there. Though even Second Life makes you click around a lot before you finally get to… $209 a month for a 20,000 prim region??? With a $349 setup fee???

Oh, for God’s sake. Don’t make your potential customers suffer like that! And pay so, so much for so little!

Make things easy for them. And take their money first, then figure out everything else.

Put a big, bold “Rent Land Now” button right on your homepage. When a user clicks this button, they should be taken directly to a simple, streamlined land rental page.

Or you can put a form right on the home page with your three top-selling options.

Darkheart’s Playground was the only grid I found that had a land rental box right on the home page. You do have to scroll down to find it, and the options could be simpler, but they’ve got something! Unfortunately, as of this writing, none of the buttons work. In theory, however, they could bring up a PayPal popup where all a user would have to do is click the “Pay Now” button and be in business. They can create their user accounts and decide on region names later, after they’ve given you the money.

Offer a few pre-configured land packages based on your most popular options. For example, you might have a “Starter Region” with 15,000 prims and 20 avatar capacity, a “Community Region” with 45,000 prims and 50 avatar capacity, and a “Commercial Region” with 100,000 prims and 100 avatar capacity. Each option should have a clear price and a “Rent Now” button that takes the user directly to a payment page. Or you might organize them based on who the customer is — a homesteader, a builder, an events venue, a merchant — and create default region packages that fit their needs best.

If a user wants a more customized land configuration, take them to a simple form where they can enter their desired land size, prim count, and avatar capacity. Avoid requiring technical details like server names or region coordinates — handle these on the back-end after the user has completed their purchase, or give them a default configuration that they can simply agree to.

The key is to minimize the number of decisions and technical details the user has to deal with.

Pretend you’re a newcomer from, say, Second Life, attracted by your grid’s low prices. How many clicks would it take for them to actually make a purchase?

Try to get someone who hates you to go through the process — a teenage child, for example, or a coworker whose lunch you’ve stolen. Will they be able to navigate through to the end without your help?

If your grid doesn’t rent land, replace this item with whatever else a top priority for your visitors would be.

For example, if you’re a free-to-connect grid, you can feature an at-home region-installer download.

If you’re a non-profit, use this space for a donation button. You can use one simple donation button, or have tiers for different levels of support. Explain what the donation will be used for — to buy developers coffee? To pay for backup servers? To reduce lag?

If you have a content marketplace, feature a bestselling item or a new arrival.

If you offer paid memberships, put that in this prominent location.

Latest events

The next thing you’ll want to feature on your home page is an ad for an upcoming event, to give people a good reason to come to your grid. Or you might feature a write-up of an event that just happened, to make people feel sorry that they missed out on something cool.

If you don’t have any events, offer a promo deal, or a how-to article, or showcase a freebie — something new and fresh that will reward people for coming to your website, and make them more likely to share the link with friends.

The goal is to give potential visitors a sense of the vibrant, active community on your grid and to entice them to come and check out what’s happening. This is your chance to show off the variety and creativity of your grid’s residents and events.

Discovery Grid does a great job here, by embedding their calendar right on the home page, with attractive visuals for each event.

Some ideas for types of events to highlight include:

• Live music performances
• Art exhibitions and gallery openings
• Fashion shows and contests
• Role-playing events and adventures
• Educational workshops and classes
• Community gatherings and parties
• Charity events and fundraisers

For each event, provide a brief description, the date and time, and a high-quality image that captures the excitement and energy of the event. If possible, include a direct link to the event location on your grid, so visitors can easily teleport there.

In addition to featuring specific events, consider showcasing user-generated content and activities on your grid. This could include:

• New and notable builds or regions
• User-created games and attractions
• Popular social spots and hangouts
• Featured merchants and creators

By regularly updating your events and activities section, you’ll give visitors a reason to keep coming back to your website and your grid. They’ll see that there’s always something new and exciting happening, and they won’t want to miss out.

Remember, the goal is to make your grid irresistible to potential visitors. By showcasing the vibrant, active community on your grid and highlighting all the amazing events and activities happening there, you’ll give people a compelling reason to come and experience it for themselves.

Having fresh content on your home page will also help your grid rank higher in search engines. You can also cheat, and embed your social media feed. For example, if you regularly post stuff on Facebook or another social media platform, embed the feed to get fresh new stuff for your home page all the time. Well, as long as you keep your social media fresh.

Littlefield Grid, for example, embeds their Twitter feed on their home page. OSgrid and AviWorlds embed Discord pages. GroovyVerse embeds their Mastodon feed and shared snapshots from residents. ZetaWorlds features their latest blog posts.

ZetaWorlds, by the way, also makes it super easy to grab the hypergrid address with that nice red “Copy” button, the green “Join Now!” button takes you to a signup page with a nice choice of membership levels, and the images on the home page feature people!

Login button

This is one item that nearly every grid has, and it’s where it should be — at the top right of the page.

That’s because they know that a top reason that people come to their website is to do stuff with their accounts, like submit support requests.

Good job, OpenSim grids.

Keep it simple

That might seem like a lot of stuff to put on a single page: a picture of people, a hypergrid address, a land rental box, a new event or announcement, and a login button at the top right.

But if you look through grid home pages, you’ll often find that they’ve got a lot of stuff crammed in there, most of it which isn’t a top priority for either users or grid owners.

Some grids put their mission statements on the home page. In my opinion, these are all identical and a waste of space that takes focus away from the things that you actually want people to pay attention to. Some grids post detailed technical details about their configurations. Some grids post random graphics unrelated to OpenSim.

Many grids post stats boxes. I’m all in favor of grids publishing their stats, but this is one thing you can safely put in a drop-down menu or at the bottom of the page. Stats are a nice-to-have — for me, anyway — but if they take away real estate that can be used to promote an event or a land sale — go with the event or land sale.

There’s only so many things a person can absorb when they look at a website. Too much clutter will drive people away.

You can put everything else in drop-down menus or further down on the home page, where people can scroll to see it.

A note about grid stats

Now, I know that grids don’t have to publish their stats. And some grids probably shouldn’t — there’s no reason for a school grid or a company grid only used by its employees to tell the world how many visitors it has.

But public and commercial grids should publish their stats, because it’s a free inbound link from Hypergrid Business every month. Our monthly stats report is one of our best-read regular posts, and people check the lists we publish to find new grids to visit.

If you have a grid, you can check that it’s on our active grids list, and if you want to know if we’re collecting your grid’s stats, check out our April 2024 raw stats report.

If you don’t have a stats page, or want to make sure that your stats page is as easy as possible for our database to read, so that there aren’t any mistakes, it should have the following information:

Total number of registered users: 123
Total regions: 4567
Unique 30-day visitors: 890

The way the scraper looks is that it searches for a key phrase, then grabs the numbers immediately after the phrase.

I prefer to see regions counted in the form of standard region equivalents, but my database can also handle square meters and square kilometers. And, for active monthly users or unique 30-day visitors, I prefer to have a single total of both local and hypergrid visitors. You can also have other stats on your stats page, but these three are the ones that I track to have consistency for comparison purposes.

I also prefer it when the stats page is as simple as possible, with no tables, animations, or weird graphics to mess up the parser.

If you want to see examples of stats pages that work well for me, check out the DigiWorldz stats page, or the Alternate Metaverse stats page, or the Wolf Territories Grid stats page. That last one is my favorite because there are no thousands separators in the numbers. The thing with separators is that some countries use commas, some use periods, and some use apostrophes. Arrgh!

If you’ve ever wondered why I’m the only one who collects these stats every month, and why there are so many mistakes in them — this is why. It’s pretty much impossible to write an automated system to collect stats because every grid formats them differently. So there’s a lot of manual labor involved, folks.

Why should anyone care about OpenSim stats? They’re meaningless, right? Who cares how many people a grid has? No, there’s no reason to care except… marketing!

Every grid that reports users is more social proof that people are using and enjoying OpenSim. The more grids report their stats, the better. Even if your grid is small — some people prefer small grids.

And don’t forget: other grids aren’t your competitors. Your biggest enemy is the fact that Second Life users don’t know that OpenSim exists. Once they find out, and learn about the great prices we have here, the superb amount of control people have over their own regions or private mini-grids, and the awesomeness that is the Kitely Market, then they come. And they stay. And they’ll visit multiple grids until they find one that fits them best where they can settle down and make their home. And they’ll go shopping, and attend events, and donate to performers, and do all the things to grow the platform.

Every single grid that brings in people from Second Life helps all the grids. Every single article or post or social media share that tells people that OpenSim exists helps everyone.

Hypergrid Business editor and publisher Maria Korolov is a science fiction novelist. During the day, Maria Korolov is an award-winning freelance technology journalist who covers artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and enterprise virtual reality. See her Amazon author page here and follow her on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn, and check out her latest videos on the Maria Korolov YouTube channel. Email her at maria@hypergridbusiness.com. Her first virtual world novella, Krim Times, made the Amazon best-seller list in its category. Her second novella, The Lost King of Krim, is out now. She is also the publisher of MetaStellar, a new online magazine of speculative fiction.

Latest posts by Maria Korolov (see all)

Today was the last day of 3rd Rock Grid, one of the oldest grids in OpenSim.

The grid announced that it was closing back in March, and, since then, many of the former residents have found their way to other grids, with ZetaWorlds being a popular destination.

Start at Sirocco, which is slated to by the administrative hub of the new 3rd Rock Grid expat community once its done. There is already land available for rent, starting at $2.50 a month for a 10,000-prim Second Life-sized region.

Check out the 3rd Wind Community website for more information, including land prices, an events calendar, and a membership form.

The community rented a dedicated servers from ZetaWorlds and, as a non-profit, can offer very low land prices, said Alia Soulstar, a founder of the 3rd Wind Community.

There are also arts and education areas and other public lands, she told Hypergrid Business, with a total land area of more than 800 standard region equivalents.

“We had a month-long series of community meetings where we invited the owners of a handful of grids to come and talk,” Soulstar said. “Then we had a long discussion and choose this grid. A lot of the choice was based around the flexibility of having a dedicated server to design our own community around. The general feeling was that we wanted to stay together as a family, so we made the collective decision to move here.”

She recommends that people start on the Sirocco region of ZetaWorlds, where they can find out about land ownership and get other administrative information.

Teleport to hg.zetaworlds.com:80:Sirocco.

“We are still under construction so haven’t made a landmark map yet, but will have that up in a few days,” she said.

People also gather on the beach on the Peapod region and Risa on the Anubis region.

Teleport to hg.zetaworlds.com:80:Peapod.

But the most popular location is Infinity region’s Starfleet Infinity area, home to bars, dance places, space stations, and starships.

Teleport to hg.zetaworlds.com:80:Infinity.

Teleport to hg.zetaworlds.com:80:Anubis and hg.zetaworlds.com:80:Infinity.

There are also music venues on the Khamsin region, she said, with live performances four to five times per week.

Teleport to hg.zetaworlds.com:80:Khamsin.

For those who haven’t yet transfered their regions or avatar inventories, there is still time, said Soulstar. ” 3rd Rock Grid created OARs of all the regions there and will hold them in cloud storage for a year so they can be reclaimed, and a number of IARs for active users, too. And we are able to load OARs and IARs for recovery, so all is not lost if you find yourself locked out.”

ZetaWorlds will upload the OAR region export files and IAR inventory files for users, she said, and the 3rd Wind Community will help with the process.

The OARs will be “kept for the foreseable future,” 3rd Rock Grid board member Tara Dockery, also known as Thoria Millgrove in-world, said yesterday. “We will provide those OARs to the registered owners upon request.”

Her own region, Peapod, is already on ZetaWorlds, along with its events, Dockery told Hypergrid Business.

You can read more about the transition to ZetaWorlds at Thirza Ember’s Hypergrid Safari blog.

Hypergrid Business editor and publisher Maria Korolov is a science fiction novelist. During the day, Maria Korolov is an award-winning freelance technology journalist who covers artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and enterprise virtual reality. See her Amazon author page here and follow her on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn, and check out her latest videos on the Maria Korolov YouTube channel. Email her at maria@hypergridbusiness.com. Her first virtual world novella, Krim Times, made the Amazon best-seller list in its category. Her second novella, The Lost King of Krim, is out now. She is also the publisher of MetaStellar, a new online magazine of speculative fiction.

Latest posts by Maria Korolov (see all)

The total land area in OpenSim fell this month by over 3,000 standard region equivalents, the total number of registered users fell by just over 1,000, and the number of active monthly users dropped by 425 compared to this time last month.

The region loss was due to the fact that Discovery Grid did not report its region totals this month. In April, the grid reported 5,178 standard region equivalents.

In addition, several grids did not report their stats this month, including Kater and Friends, ProxyNet, Caribou Grid, and Resurgence. Each of these grids has reported hundreds of active users earlier this year. If the grid has moved, please let me know at maria@hypergridbusiness.com.

The numerical losses were not due to 3rd Rock Grid’s closure yesterday, since that grid still showed up as active for the past four weeks and did report its stats. Its loss will show up in next month’s stats report.

The total land area on OpenSim’s public grids reached the equivalent of 135,700 standard regions this month, down from last month’s all-time high — and still several times bigger that the total land area of Second Life.

The biggest gainer in terms of land area was OSgrid, which gained 1,160 new standard region equivalents, maintaining its status as the largest public grid in OpenSim. It was followed in growth numbers by ZetaWorlds with 1,024 new regions and Wolf Territories Grid with 384 new regions.

At the same time, the number of active users dropped to 47,195.

Wolf Territories Grid retained their first-place position by traffic numbers.

I’m now tracking a total of 2,661 OpenSim grids, of which 307 were active, and 249 published their statistics this month. If you have a stats page that we’re not tracking, please email me at maria@hypergridbusiness.com — that way, your grid will be mentioned in this report every month, for additional visibility with both search engines and users.

The following grids were added to our database this month: 3World, BachmansWorld One, Bridger, CyberDataStorm, and Dark Heaven.

Also, I’m no longer sending out a monthly email blast reminding OpenSim grid owners to send me news and updates for this report. If you have news, please email me before the tenth of the month if you want a short item included in this monthly wrap-up. For longer news, feel free to send me press releases at any time.

Our stats do not include many of the grids running on DreamGrid which is a distribution of OpenSim since these tend to be private grids.

OpenSim is a free open-source, virtual world platform, that’s similar to Second Life and allows people with no technical skills to quickly and cheaply create virtual worlds and teleport to other virtual worlds. Those with technical skills can run OpenSim worlds on their servers for free using either DreamGrid, the official OpenSim installer for those who are more technically inclined, or any other distribution, while commercial hosting starts at less than $5 a region.

A list of OpenSim hosting providers is here. Download the recommended Firestorm viewer here and find out where to get content for your OpenSim world or region here.

Hypergrid Business newsletter is now available

Every month on the 15th — right after the stats report comes out — we will be sending out a newsletter with all the OpenSim news from the previous month. You can subscribe here or fill out the form below.

Top 25 grids by active users

When it comes to general-purpose social grids, especially closed grids, the rule of thumb is the busier the better. People looking to make new friends look for grids that already have the most users. Merchants looking to sell content will go to the grids with the most potential customers. Event organizers looking for the biggest audience — you get the idea.

Top 25 most popular grids this month:

1. Wolf Territories Grid: 5,904 active users
2. OSgrid: 5,263 active users
3. GBG World: 2,174 active users
4. DigiWorldz: 2,125 active users
5. Alternate Metaverse: 2,001 active users
6. Darkheart’s Playground: 1,462 active users
7. WaterSplash: 1,419 active users
8. Vida Dupla: 1,222 active users
9. Moonrose: 1,149 active users
10. AviWorlds: 1,105 active users
11. Neverworld: 1,086 active users
12. Trianon World: 1,014 active users
13. Littlefield: 993 active users
14. Craft World: 965 active users
15. AvatarLife: 940 active users
16. Party Destination Grid: 845 active users
17. Astralia: 773 active users
18. Virtualife: 750 active users
19. Kitely: 655 active users
20. German World Grid: 623 active users
21. ZetaWorlds: 618 active users
22. Herederos Grid: 588 active users
23. CandM World: 563 active users
24. Groovy Verse: 505 active users
25. Eureka World: 490 active users

Top 40 grids by land area

All region counts on this list are, whenever available, in terms of standard region equivalents. Active user counts include hypergrid visitors whenever possible.

Many school, company, or personal grids do not publish their numbers.

The raw data for this month’s report is here. A list of all active grids is here. And here is a list of all the hypergrid-enabled grids and their hypergrid addresses, sorted by popularity. This is very useful if you are creating a hyperport.

You can see all the historical OpenSim statistics here, including polls and surveys, dating all the way back to 2009.

• OSgrid: 30,960 regions
• Wolf Territories Grid: 28,928 regions
• Kitely: 18,085 regions
• ZetaWorlds: 12,772 regions
• Alternate Metaverse: 9,811 regions
• Groovy Verse: 7,864 regions
• DigiWorldz: 3,546 regions
• German World Grid: 2,476 regions
• CandM World: 1,760 regions
• Tag Grid: 1,464 regions
• Shoalwater Bay: 1,072 regions
• GBG World: 956 regions
• Virtual Worlds Grid: 915 regions
• 3rd Rock Grid: 872 regions
• AviWorlds: 853 regions
• Friends Grid: 816 regions
• ArtDestiny: 784 regions
• Kinky Haven: 669 regions
• AvatarLife: 605 regions
• Littlefield: 514 regions
• Craft World: 471 regions
• GorGrid: 430 regions
• Tomi’s World: 400 regions
• Furry World: 373 regions
• Neverworld: 344 regions
• DreamNation: 318 regions
• Nemesis 3D: 305 regions
• EdMondo: 300 regions
• Open Virtual Worlds: 241 regions
• Japan Open Grid: 194 regions
• Counter Earth: 186 regions
• MisFitz Grid: 181 regions
• Adreans-World: 173 regions
• GerGrid: 141 regions
• OpenSim Fest: 140 regions
• Darkheart’s Playground: 137 regions
• WestWorld Grid: 135 regions
• Outworldz: 127 regions
• Galactic Virtual: 127 regions
• Logicamp: 123 regions

Do you know of any other grids that are open to the public but that we don’t have in our database? Email me at maria@hypergridbusiness.com.

Hypergrid Business editor and publisher Maria Korolov is a science fiction novelist. During the day, Maria Korolov is an award-winning freelance technology journalist who covers artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and enterprise virtual reality. See her Amazon author page here and follow her on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn, and check out her latest videos on the Maria Korolov YouTube channel. Email her at maria@hypergridbusiness.com. Her first virtual world novella, Krim Times, made the Amazon best-seller list in its category. Her second novella, The Lost King of Krim, is out now. She is also the publisher of MetaStellar, a new online magazine of speculative fiction.

Latest posts by Maria Korolov (see all)

Discovery Grid, which had been in OpenSim for more than a dozen years, is moving today to the Open 3D Engine platform, also known as O3DE.

In his announcement, grid owner Rene Vega — also known as Balpien Hammerer in-world — cited declining user engagement and the limitations of OpenSim technology as key factors in the decision. Statistics showed active accounts had dropped to 26 percent of their 2019 levels, while monthly active users fell to 19 percent and total regions decreased to 55 percent of their previous numbers, he said.

“It is clear to me that this grid needs new experiences. It needs the means to ease the development effort by creatives; modern tools are required,” Vega said. “Unfortunately OpenSim lacks these tools.”

The transition to O3DE promises significant technical improvements, including more land space—equivalent to 32,768 standard-sized regions—along with advanced features like realistic ocean dynamics, volumetric clouds, and PhysX5 physics simulation.

To ensure an orderly closure, Discovery Grid implemented a 90-day transition plan, offering free region backups to all landowners and coordinating with the Utopia Skye grid to facilitate inventory transfers for users.

Rather than a complete shutdown, Vega positioned this move as a strategic pivot, stating the business would continue under a new virtual world platform based on O3DE technology. However, no specific timeline was provided for the launch of the new platform.

The closure reflects broader challenges within the OpenSimulator ecosystem, particularly regarding viewer compatibility issues and the platform’s struggle to keep pace with modern virtual world capabilities. Discovery Grid’s transition marks one of the first major moves by an established virtual world from OpenSimulator to the newer O3DE platform.

What is O3DE?

O3DE initially began as Amazon Lumberyard, built on top of the CryEngine game platform technology.

Amazon donated the project to the Linux Foundation in 2021, and O3DE became fully open sourced, with an Apache license.

It is a partner of the Linux-based Open Metaverse Foundation, which was launched in January of 2023, so, at some point, it might support teleports between worlds.

You can check out the showcase of O3DE examples here. There’s not much there yet. A couple of empty city builds, some robotics simulations, and a couple of game demos. None link to anything you can easily access online, though a couple do take you to a GitHub project page. I can’t find any examples of worlds built with O3DE that you can actually visit.

Plus, Unity and Unreal both have free options. Unreal, a high-end game development engine, is free if you have less than $1 million in annual revenues. Unity, popular for web and mobile apps, is free for individuals and companies that have less than $200,000 in revenues.

Is OpenSim losing steam?

Back in 2007, Second Life users figured out how the viewer communicated with back-end servers. This enabled people to build bots for Second Life, and to create alternative viewers to the official one.

Meanwhile, enterprises were getting very excited about the possibility of using Second Life for productivity, training, product prototyping, marketing, and customer support. However, they didn’t want their users in the public Second Life system, with all its gambling and nudity and financial scams. They needed a secure, private environment for their customers and employees.

So IBM and Intel and a few other companies and volunteer developers built a brand new server infrastructure that used the same viewer communication protocols as Second Life. That way, it could be accessed through all the Second Life-compatible viewers. On the back end, however, it was completely different and built from scratch. It even used a different programming language and architecture.

People were excited about being able to have their own private worlds — and to build commercial alternatives to Second Life.

Then, in 2008, Christa Lopes, a computing professor at UC Irvine, invented the hypergrid, and many of these new worlds became hyperlinked.

But then something bad happened.

Companies realized that there wasn’t all that much benefit to doing stuff in virtual worlds. There were better platforms for virtual prototyping and video calls were much more convenient for meetings. OpenSim had a high learning curve.

The way big, complex open source projects normally work is that they have a big community of developers that contributes new fixes and bug fixes. These developers generally come out of the user base. The more users, the more developers. Since most users are not themselves developers, and even those who are have other stuff to work on, you need a very large user base in order to continue innovating.

In particular, having large enterprises like IBM use the platform is key, because they can assign developers to work on the project. It’s not just out of the goodness of their hearts, of course — they want to make sure that a project they use a lot isn’t abandoned, and also that it evolves in a direction they like.

Without corporate backing, and without a large, passionate user base, OpenSim development slowed down significantly.

But so did Second Life.

The learning curve was too steep, the usability wasn’t there, and the benefits were not readily apparent. The technology was supposed to go viral but never did. People tried it out, says, “hey, that’s cool,” and then never went back to it.

Kind of like me with my giant collection of virtual reality headsets.

And OpenSim is way too slow and expensive to be used as a gaming engine. Successful video games need to be able to support thousands of players, at least, with no lag. And, of course, OpenSim has no built-in game mechanics.

As a result, there have been only minor, incremental improvements over the past decade. Teleportation improved. Stability improved. Graphics slightly improved. But basically, anyone who used Second Life or OpenSim ten years ago will find it pretty much the same today.

The usability hasn’t improved. The learning curve is no shorter. There’s still no decent web viewer or mobile viewer.

And, other than some kind of emotional connection to OpenSim and the desire to see it survive, there’s no real motivation for change. For current users, OpenSim and Second Life are fine the way they are. They liked it ten years ago and they still like it.

There’s no killer use case out there that people are clamoring for.

For me, OpenSim is now retro. Like text-based games or eight-bit graphics.

I’m a little sad about it. I’ve spent 15 years writing about OpenSim and used to think that it was the future of interactivity. But I don’t have my own grid anymore, and rarely go into OpenSim for meetings or events these days — so I can see why grid owners might be looking at alternatives.

The one big thing I’ll miss if there’s a big migration to something like O3DE is the hypergrid. Maybe Crista Lopes can take a look at it and see what she can do.

What about you? Are you planning to check out O3DE? What do you think about the future of OpenSim?

Hypergrid Business editor and publisher Maria Korolov is a science fiction novelist. During the day, Maria Korolov is an award-winning freelance technology journalist who covers artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and enterprise virtual reality. See her Amazon author page here and follow her on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn, and check out her latest videos on the Maria Korolov YouTube channel. Email her at maria@hypergridbusiness.com. Her first virtual world novella, Krim Times, made the Amazon best-seller list in its category. Her second novella, The Lost King of Krim, is out now. She is also the publisher of MetaStellar, a new online magazine of speculative fiction.

Latest posts by Maria Korolov (see all)