Steam's latest free game is blowing up right now

Steam’s latest free shooter is proving to be a big hit, despite its mixed reviews.

It feels like every few months, a free game on Steam blows up overnight with incredible concurrent player numbers, such as Schedule I and Marvel Rivals as just two recent examples.

While not currently garnering numbers in the hundreds of thousands, over the last few days, the free-to-play, third-person shooter, Off the Grid, has seen a sharp increase in concurrent players of roughly 500%.

According to the data on SteamDB, on 17 July 2025, the concurrent player peak for Off the Grid was 1,586, but as of the last 24 hours, it has currently achieved an all-time high peak of 12,648.

What’s more, with a real-time concurrent player number being over 4,500 at the time of writing, Off the Grid is trending at number one in the Steam charts.

“Welcome to Off The Grid, the next-gen free-to-play battle royale from visionary director Neill Blomkamp,” reads the synopsis of the game. “Set in a near-future world where contestants are cybernetically augmented and dropped into televised bloodsport. Death is temporary, but fame is forever.”

Off the Grid currently has a “Mixed” user rating on Steam.

“I don’t have much time for gaming these days, but this one is perfect for quick matches in the evening,” wrote the positive homehater.

“The update is epic and the game is already legendary, just need to buff weapons and launch more content,” suggested waldekwlkowiak.

“The game runs like garbage at 30fps constantly, despite using a God PC build that runs every game at max graphics... worst optimisation of any game,” said the negative LanceyPooh.

“Somehow it got worse than the playtest, nothing but microtransactions, and the time-to-death hit registration makes it worse,” exclaimed Edwathegrey.

Many who have played Off the Grid have also criticised the shooter for its implementation of optional NFT elements.

Off the Grid is available now on PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S.