Shrapnel Reboots on Steam as a 4v4 Shooter, With No Crypto in Sight
It was pitched as web3's big extraction shooter. After a lawsuit, a restructure and a rebuild, Shrapnel came back in 2026 as a fast 4v4 game on Steam, and left its NFTs behind.
For years, Shrapnel was the shooter that web3 gaming pointed to when people asked where the "real" games were. It had slick trailers, veterans of big studios on staff and a promise of player-owned weapons on the Avalanche blockchain. When it finally reached Steam, it had become a different game, and the blockchain was nowhere to be seen.
Neon Machine launched Shrapnel into Steam early access on 12 March 2026, a week after an announced date of 5 March. It is free to play on PC. The launch build has one mode, Stockpile, one map, a dusk-lit Tokyo, and two characters. The Steam version contains no blockchain features, which the studio attributes to the platform's rules. Early reviews are encouraging: "Mostly Positive", 72% of 739 user reviews.
From extraction to Stockpile
The original Shrapnel was a loot-extraction shooter: drop in, grab valuables, get out alive. Its first public test, STX1, ran on the Epic Games Store from 8 to 10 February 2024, with a $100,000 prize pool in its SHRAP token and access for the 3,000 players who had bought an Extraction Pack.
The 2026 game keeps the setting and the central resource but changes the shape. In Stockpile, two teams of four race to collect and deposit 300 grav-kilos of Sigma, a volatile energy that falls from the sky during the map's regular storms. Sigma is also what powers each character's abilities, and those abilities grow stronger as your team banks more of it, so every deposit is both a point on the scoreboard and a power spike.
Why the rebuild happened
Shrapnel's journey has not been smooth. Neon Machine started the project in 2021 with $10.5 million, added a $20 million round in October 2023, and by early 2024 was also fighting a lawsuit against its controlling shareholder, Cort Javarone, while insisting it remained in control of the game. A leadership change followed, and the studio says it redesigned the game around Stockpile based on what two full playtests told it, rather than patching the old design.
The rebuild uses Unreal Engine 5 and new server code. The studio says it has secured $37.5 million for development. Its roadmap for early access lists skill-based matchmaking, weapon loadouts, account progression, more maps, daily missions and a battle pass, and it ships new gameplay every Wednesday at 10am PST.
Where did the web3 go?
Here is the twist. The NFTs from the Avalanche era are not connected to the Steam version, and neither are stats from earlier playtests. Neon Machine says web3 features will come later on GalaChain, with a focus on the Chinese market through a long-term agreement with Trusted Copyright Chain. For Steam players, Shrapnel is simply a free shooter with cosmetic weapon skins, which, in this build, give XP boosts.
The SHRAP token still exists but plays no part in the Steam game, and it does not rank among CoinGecko's top 40 gaming tokens by market cap as of 12 November 2026. Token prices are volatile, and the studio has not said how or when SHRAP will connect to the new build.
WGC's take
Shrapnel's reboot is a small revolution in honesty. Instead of leading with ownership and tokens, Neon Machine is trying to win players with a tight, readable 4v4 mode, and the early Steam reviews suggest it might work. The risk is obvious: the people who funded Shrapnel's NFTs were promised something the current game does not deliver. If you just want to try it, it is free on Steam, and no wallet is needed.