If you work at Gunzilla Games right now, there is a real chance you have not seen a paycheck since last year. Multiple current and former employees of the studio behind NFT battle royale shooter Off The Grid have gone public on LinkedIn, claiming they are owed months of unpaid salary and that leadership has been ignoring their attempts to get answers.
What employees are saying publicly
The situation came into focus on April 7 when Anna Savina, formerly Gunzilla's head of talent acquisition, posted on LinkedIn that she was owed multiple months of salary after spending three years at the studio. Her post was direct: "I'm not the only one. I know many talented colleagues who are in the same 'fog'. We're not asking for bonuses; we're demanding what we have earned."
Senior VFX Animator Paul Creamer followed with his own account, describing how he continued working through October, November, and December of 2025 after being told payment delays were temporary. According to Creamer, CEO Vlad Korolev personally joined a department call in December and assured staff that invoices would be paid soon, that the company was profitable, and that employees were "doing the right thing by keeping quiet and continuing to work." Those invoices were allegedly never paid.
The replies to Savina's post kept coming. Animator Rayan Tiraghan confirmed he was also owed three months of salary. Current QA developer Vladyslav Makarevych stated his last paycheck came in September, meaning he has reportedly gone roughly six months without pay. Concept artist Andrew Snitsar claimed five months of unpaid wages after more than five years at the company, writing: "I trusted their promises because we were 'family' and now they owe me 5 months' worth of salary."
danger
Makarevych also noted that Gunzilla recently changed its company registration and revoked staff access to email and Jira, adding another layer of concern for employees still trying to get answers.
These are not isolated complaints. Numerous additional posts on LinkedIn from former and current Gunzilla staff echo the same story. Kotaku reached out to Gunzilla for comment, and the studio had not responded at the time of publication.
The bigger picture around Gunzilla
Gunzilla launched Off The Grid in early access in October 2024 across consoles and PC. The game integrates NFT buying and selling through a blockchain system, though those features are restricted on console and Steam. Only the Epic Games Store version supports the full NFT functionality.
Here's the thing: the studio's profile got significantly bigger in March 2025 when it acquired and relaunched Game Informer, the long-running publication that GameStop had shut down in 2024. Gunzilla has maintained that the outlet operates with full editorial independence. That acquisition now looks complicated given the financial picture being painted by employees.
What most players miss when a studio runs into trouble like this is how far back the problems actually go. Creamer's account specifically names Q4 2025 as the period when payment stopped, meaning this was already a serious internal issue while the studio was publicly expanding its media footprint.
The allegations paint a picture of a studio that was making ambitious moves, acquiring a legacy media brand and running a live-service shooter with web3 features, while allegedly failing to pay the people building and supporting it. For anyone following Off The Grid or reading Game Informer, that context matters.
Gunzilla has not issued any public statement addressing the wage claims as of this writing. For more gaming industry news and coverage, make sure to check out more:
