The battle royale genre, where the final survivor wins, became one of the major genres in the gaming industry since PUBG’s global popularity. The fact that the objective is intuitive, it’s easy to construct a massive multiplayer game, the randomness, and the sense of accomplishment when the players overcome all the obstacles make many users enjoy the battle royale genre.

Blockchain developers have been publishing battle royale games for a while now, probably because it sells enough if the game is made decently, and it seems that there are more and more by the day.

The Web3 game, ‘Grit’, which was made by blockchain platform Gala Games, is a battle royale game based on the wild west. It drew some attention as it was published on the Epic Games store. Let’s have a look at how Gala Games inserted P2E elements in the battle royale genre, where everyone starts equally, and how it’s different as a battle royale game.

Grit follows the basic formula of the battle royale genre. When the game starts, players drop from an aircraft and land in a certain area. They farm weapons, armor, and consumables to survive until they’re the final survivor.

If they were to die in the middle of the game, they are given one chance to be revived, and if they win the battle, they can return to the battlefield and continue their survival. Like this, if you’re a user that enjoyed the battle royale genre before, you’ll get used to the game in no time -- it follows the formula perfectly.

The first differentiation is the universe setting and item farming. First, Grit’s background is the wild west, and it covers the bloody battles of cowboys. Obviously, the characters and equipment they use are suited to the era. Players have to fight with classic firearms such as Winchester rifles or bolt-action sniper rifles.

One of the fun parts of the wild west environment was the horseback battles. It was more enjoyable than I thought to ride horses, which can be obtained in the field, and shoot enemies while galloping through the lands. It was a bit difficult to get used to riding horses since its control was a bit unique, but once you get a grip, you can create awesome moments like wild west movies.

The weapons you can use are knives, axes, revolvers, rifles, and sniper rifles. According to their grades, the weapons’ performance is different. That being said, players have to find higher-grade equipment and sometimes kill enemies to steal their items. But since there is quite enough equipment in the field, and it’s rather easy to find high-grade equipment, so farming wasn’t too difficult.

The shooting was better than I thought. There were many different kinds of guns, and the classic design was embodied quite nicely. However, the weapon balance and operation weren’t as satisfying. The recoil difference was too big, it was difficult to harness. When shooting in zoom mode, the smoke from the gunpowder blocked the sight, so it was inconvenient.

A unique system of farming equipment was the card system. Each piece of equipment has a mark - spade, clover, heart, or diamond, and depending on the mark, they have a special effect on the equipment. For example, if you shoot an enemy with a diamond-marked weapon, the enemy is marked on the map for a certain amount of time.

Like this, each symbol has a different effect. Depending on what symbol the weapon has, the benefits of using them in battles are different. Since small benefits can change the results in the battle royale genre, the farming system with the symbols makes the survival strategy deeper.

The most regretful thing about the game is that its quality isn’t that good. I can understand the graphics since it’s a game for low-spec equipment, but the characters’ motion or control isn’t very good. There are quite a few actions that characters can do, such as walking, running, reloading, and parkour, but it feels somewhat clunky.

Shooting an enemy with a gun, which is the most important in a shooting game, wasn’t that good either. As mentioned above, it wasn’t easy to harness the recoil, and hitting the opponent didn’t have enough effect. If you move the tiniest bit, the aim widens so much, so the game requires minimum movement. One of the reasons could have been the high ping due to using a VPN.

However, considering it as a Web3 game, it gets different. It has almost all the content and system you can expect from a battle royale game. The quality is low, but it doesn’t harm the fun of playing the game. If you get used to it, it’s more than enough to enjoy Grit’s unique fun.

As a Web3 game, Grit has Gunslinger Boxes as NFT rewards, and there are NFT consumables. First, a Gunslinger Box is a product that contains an NFT character skin. If you purchase the box, you can gain one out of 10,000 NFT characters, and the character has its own unique appearance and ability. You can enjoy this in a game, or deal it with another person. Easily put, you can deal skins that have abilities with other people.

The NFT consumables are items that you can use in the game, such as weapons, armor, healing consumables, grenades, etc. Like equipment, there are five grades, and they provide the same ability as the consumables you can find in the game, but you can use them more with higher grades. If you bring such items in advance, you can start battles much ahead of other players.

Besides that, there is the battle pass, where people can gain in-game products even without owning an NFT. There’s also a competitive mode where NFT users can compete with each other.

Overall, Grit is a quite fun battle royale Web3 game. You don’t need to purchase an NFT to enjoy it from the Epic Games store, and if you farm well and play strategically, you can become the last man standing. If you purchase NFT characters or consumables with the tokens you earned, you can even get ahead of other players.

It’s positive that they made the game and blockchain go along well. However, if your main objective is to earn money, you’ll be better off playing a different Web3 game. Also, there aren’t enough reasons for even battle royale gamers to enjoy Grit. Its quality or fun isn’t enough compared to other battle royale games.

The intention and goal of the game are quite alright, but it won’t be easy to play in Korea. However, they’re still taking their initial steps. Hopefully, there will be more NFT services or content to come.