There is a place in the market for blockchain games and one day, there will be a blockchain game proving the model is viable; however, based on everything I have seen so far, Shrapnel will not be that game.
PvP Multiplayer.
I must preface this by saying I believe in cryptocurrency. I feel it serves a purpose now and will serve a greater purpose in the future. However, in its current form, it’s just not ready for widespread adoption.
Until crypto game developers find a way to make buying and selling crypto as seamless as purchasing Call of Duty Coins or Fortnite vBucks, even the best crypto games will not achieve mainstream success.
However, I must give credit where it is due. Shrapnel is the best-looking and most “PC-like” blockchain game I have ever played.
While some pretty successful mobile games use a play-to-earn business model, they are very much mobile games, even if a few are playable on PC via a browser or downloadable client.
So it’s refreshing to see a blockchain game that at least aims to offer a more PC/Console-based expierance than the mobile games that are more commonly made available.
The problem is not that Shrapnel is not a “proper game”; the problem is that it is very early in development and trying to compete with Escape from Tarkov, a game that saw off competition from the likes of Activision (Call of Duty DMZ) and Electronic Arts (Hazard Zone) without so much as breaking a sweat.
I have played many extraction games and even liked a few, but none have come close to competing with Escape from Tarkov, and most look set to either die while in early access or do so shortly after launch.
Is there room for more than one Extraction shooter on the market? Of course!, but in much the same way Dead by Daylight has the asymmetrical multiplayer genre in a chokehold due to its massive player base and a vast library of intellectual properties, Escape From Tarkov was the first serious attempt at making a AAA extraction game, and even seven years later, it remains the only true AAA extraction game to enjoy all the benefits that come with having a large and passionate community.
A community that allowed it to remain at the top of the genre, a significant achievement considering that Call of Duty: DMZ was free to play and Escape From Tarkov retails north of $50 for the standard edition, with premium editions costing $250.
The developers of Shrapnel dream big, and there is nothing wrong with dreaming big; the problem is that they do not consider the challenges they are facing or do not consider them enough.
The pay-to-earn model has yet to be accepted by the majority of gamers (despite being a good model). Blockchain games are banned on some platforms (including Steam), and they are just starting their early access journey, while the king of the genre (Escape from Tarkov) is close to finishing its journey.
By the time Shrapnel is ready to compete with even the lesser-known extraction shooters, Escape from Tarkov will have such an insurmountable lead that Shrapnel will struggle to become a top ten-ranked extraction game, let alone break into the top three or claim the throne.
Shrapnel is still in very early access. At the time of writing this, its most recent playtest (which lasted around 1 week) just ended.
We have no idea when it will return, but considering the playtest featured holiday assets, and the developers warned it will be the last time to play Solo extraction before major changes in 2025, it’s likely that we will not hear from Shrapnel or its developers till early 2025, at the very earliest
Performance is unstable, visuals unfished, and animations unrefined. While there is something there, and the concept has potential, unless I see some major improvements to the game over subsequent playtests, the only word I could find to describe Shrapnel would be “unremarkable.”
Shrapnel is a free-to-play extraction shooter video game developed by SHRAPNEL and published by Neon Machine, it is currently scheduled to release sometime in 2025.
Shrapnel is available exclusively on PC.
Shrapnel offers the following matchmaking options:
The following peripherals are officially supported:
Shrapnel is unrated and contains:
Ultimately, Shrapnel is interesting, but I would not recommend purchasing a preorder package or investing in its crypto token until the game has developed significantly and the token has proven its worth and viability to gamers and potential investors.
