Independent triple-A game developer Gunzilla Games unveiled GUNZ, a blockchain-based digital currency platform entirely constructed on an Avalanche Subnet. It will be used by Gunzilla to create Off The Grid. This network has been tailored to allow for smooth gaming, to only use in-game coins for gas (transaction) costs, and to give both Web3 and conventional players a gratifying user experience.
Other gaming companies will be able to create and publish their own projects on GUNZ by utilizing the GUNZ software development kit (SDK) and white-label elements, including an integrated companion app, a marketplace, and an NFT minting engine. GUNZ seeks to give players the choice to participate in play-to-own principles by providing provable openness and was created with the gaming community and blockchain fans in mind. Off The Grid, a Battle Royale 2.0 game from Gunzilla Games, will be the first to utilize the technology. (OTG).
By focusing on stories and digital possession and enabling players to affect both gaming and plot through their in-game choices, Off The Grid hopes to revolutionize the Battle Royale format. GUNZ aims to be one of the first crypto-economies that is favorable to players in a triple-A game by giving players full control of their in-game assets in the form of NFTs.
Additional initiatives that utilize GUNZ will be disclosed in the near future.
Gunzilla Games’ CEO, Vlad Korolov, stated that their collaboration with Avalanche provides them with the opportunity to utilize its blockchain infrastructure that is both secure and scalable. Additionally, it guarantees a gaming experience that is smooth and has minimal latency for its players. Our goal with GUNZ is to transform the gaming industry by introducing a clear system for managing in-game assets. We plan to offer various market-standard features to game developers who are using blockchain to establish their economy.
In September 2020, Avalanche was introduced, marking the beginning of a new era for blockchains that offer transaction finality almost instantly. According to Ava Labs, Avalanche currently backs over 500 applications and safeguards billions of dollars in value, while causing minimal harm to the environment. Avalanche has the capability to accommodate subnets such as Gunz, which are personalized blockchains for specific applications. This feature enables the network to expand almost limitlessly.
According to the companies, Gunzilla Games and Ava Labs, who is the primary developer of Avalanche, have formed a partnership that serves as another recent instance of gaming industry leaders acknowledging the potential of Avalanche Subnets in delivering optimal gaming experiences. According to a statement by Ava Labs’ CEO, Emin Gün Sirer, Gunzilla Games aims to transfer the finest features of Web2 gaming to Web3 and provide gamers with the high quality they expect. The new Avalanche games have been enhanced by the impressive Off The Grid Subnet and Web3 publishing stack.
The members of Gunzilla’s team have previously worked for well-known studios and publishers such as Ubisoft, Electronic Arts (EA), Blizzard Entertainment, THQ, and others. Neill Blomkamp, who has been nominated for an Oscar for his work as a screenwriter, director, and producer, has taken on the role of the chief visionary officer at Gunzilla. Furthermore, the group includes experienced professionals from the field, including Richard K. Morgan, who wrote the Altered Carbon books that were later transformed into a successful Netflix series, and Timur Davidenko, who served as Technical Director for CryEngine’s development and contributed to the creation of Far Cry, Warface, and Crysis.
Our company has a total of 190 full-time staff members who are working in our four different offices located in Frankfurt (which is our headquarters), Germany, Kyiv, Ukraine, London, and Los Angeles. Korolov sent an email to Gunzilla and mentioned that Avalanche was the only company that met their requirements for a partner to establish their blockchain platform and ecosystem. They were able to create their gaming layer 1 solution with zero transaction fees, a secure and proven source code, an eco-friendly protocol, and the option to pay gas fees using their native token.
According to him, the company aims to offer identical features to other ventures interested in constructing their games and economy on our network. Additionally, they plan to introduce the option of initiating their own subnet on Avalanche. In 2019, the Gunzilla team assembled and acknowledged their desire to develop a game that would elevate the genre’s advancement and progress to unprecedented levels.
Korolov mentioned that they drew inspiration from popular games such as PUBG, Apex Legends, The Division, and Uncharted. They used these elements to develop a game that includes all of their favourite features. Our goal was to incorporate storytelling into the battle royale genre by creating a game that focuses on narrative and immerses players in the universe we’ve built. In order to accomplish this task, we were aware that we had to enlist well-known artists such as Neill Blomkamp and Richard Morgan, who could animate our world.
He stated that they didn’t just stop at that point. Being gamers themselves, they recognized the significance of possessing complete ownership of the items that they had put in a lot of effort to obtain. That’s the reason why we included an additional level that permits our gamers to possess, exchange, or vend all of their virtual objects. Gunzilla has successfully completed two rounds of investment, the initial one generating $25 million in funding. Republic Capital led the second round, which was concluded in August 2022. The current funding round generated $46 million to further aid the progress of GUNZ.
Justin Kan, who is one of the co-founders of Twitch, along with Griffin Gaming Partners, Animoca Brands, Jump Crypto, RW3 Ventures, CoinFund, Shima Capital, Dominance Ventures, GSR, Kucoin Labs, Spartan Investment Group, Blizzard, Digital Strategies, Morningstar Ventures, Gamegroove Capital, Formless Capital, NGG and Huobi Group are among the other major participants.
