I Was Watching OTG From Day One
Off The Grid was on my list before I had a project of my own. I'd been in Web3 for years and the one thing I always wanted to play was a Call of Duty Warzone with crypto in it. OTG was the closest thing on the runway. The marketing videos were on point. The cinematics actually looked like a real game, not a crypto pitch with a UE5 sticker on it.
So when people ask why we built VS Protocol if OTG already existed, the honest answer is: I was a fan first. That matters. We didn't start VSP because OTG annoyed us. We started it because there's a specific game I wanted to play and OTG isn't it. They're going one direction. We're going another. Both can be right.
Most "vs" articles in this genre are written by someone who has never played either game. This isn't that. I've watched OTG since they were dropping their first cinematic. I respect the project. The comparison is going to be sharper because of it, not softer.
What OTG Got Right
The thing OTG nailed, and the thing I genuinely respect about the project, is the way they bridged in-game content with the real world. The way they tied real-life things into the in-game loop is good design. It's a layer most Web3 games miss completely.
I'll say it plainly: when we have the budget, we want to take inspiration from that approach. That's the highest compliment I can give a competing project. There's an idea here we want to learn from. I'm not going to pretend otherwise just because we're shipping in the same genre.
So credit where it's due. They saw a layer most of the rest of us didn't.
Where I Think OTG Is Wrong
Now the part where I disagree, and this is a personal opinion before I get the comments.
For me, the call I would never make on a serious competitive shooter is third person.
Look at the games that work in third person. Fortnite is the obvious one. Fortnite works because it's fun and a bit meme-ish. You can see your skin, you can see your dance, you can see the absurd thing the game just dropped on the map. Third person is part of how Fortnite stays light. It's a genre choice and it suits the game perfectly.
Now look at the shooters that hold up at the top of competitive play. CSGO. Valorant. Call of Duty. Apex. Every single one is first person. There's a reason for that. When the game is serious, you don't want a camera floating behind your shoulder showing you what's around a wall. You want to see what your character sees. You want the gunplay tight. You want a corner peek to be a real read, not a camera trick.
That's a personal opinion, like I said. I'm not pretending it's a law of physics. But I've played enough of both to trust it. When I sit down to play something competitively, I want first person. When I sit down to mess about, third person is fine.
VS Protocol is first person on purpose. We're aiming at the players who want a competitive extraction shooter where skill is the variable that decides the lobby, not who has the longer camera reach around the next wall.
The Team Hasn't Had This Conversation Yet
I'll be straight with you. Albert and I haven't sat down and properly debated the OTG comparison as a team. Not yet. I have my position. He might land somewhere different.
Most studios pretend their leadership team is a single voice. Ours isn't. We're two humans with different brains and we don't always agree on the small things, which is part of why the game is what it is. If Albert pushes back hard on the third-person take, you'll hear about it. We'll have that conversation and I'll write the follow-up.
I don't pretend the OTG comparison is a closed case inside our studio. It isn't. What I can say is what we've already built, and what we've already built is first person. That decision was made early and the rest of the design grew around it.
What This Looks Like For A Player With Ten Hours A Week
If you have ten hours a week to spend on one of these games, here's the honest version.
Pick OTG if you want polish, real-life integration baked into the loop, third-person feel, and a bigger team behind the production. They have more people, more money, more cinematic muscle. If that's the bag you want, they have it.
Pick VS Protocol if you care about the gunplay first, you live in first person, you want a smaller studio that ships a build and patches it the same week, and you want skill to be the lever that decides what you walk away with. We don't have OTG's budget. We have a tighter loop and a sharper bet: get good, get paid.
Both can win. Different audiences. Anyone telling you only one Web3 shooter survives the next two years is selling you something.
The Real Pitch
The line I'd lead with on VS Protocol against any comparison, OTG or otherwise, is the same one.
The better you get at the game, the more sustainable your esports career becomes. Skill is the way forward. Not your bag. Not your loadout cost. Not how many NFTs you stacked at mint. Skill. That's the variable.
That's the reason we don't have a token. That's the reason the gunplay is first person. That's the reason we run the economy on chains that already exist instead of inventing one. Every design decision ties back to one question: does this reward the better player? If the answer is no, the feature doesn't ship.
OTG is making a different game with a different bet. Theirs is a bigger, more cinematic crypto shooter with real-world integration as the standout feature. Ours is the skill bet. We're committing to it.
If You've Played Both, I Want To Hear From You
We're not trying to kill OTG. We're not even chasing the same player on the same day. They're a cinematic, third-person crypto shooter with a big production budget. We're a tighter, first-person, skill-first extraction shooter where the crypto layer is optional and the gunplay is the main event.
If you've logged real hours in both, message me. The honest read from someone who's lived in both lobbies is more useful than any marketing line either studio can write. I want to know what you'd take from one and put into the other.
If you've only played one of them, come and try the other. The fastest way to settle a comparison is to drop into both lobbies for a weekend and trust your gut.
// PAUL, CO-FOUNDER