About
Frequently asked questions
What OFFLANE is, what it isn't, and how it works. The short version: we cover free-to-play games, we don't paywall, and we're 100% human-written. If you have a question we haven't answered here, email [email protected].
What is OFFLANE?
OFFLANE (offlane.xyz) is a gaming media site that covers free-to-play games — news, reviews, guides, deals, patch notes, and tier lists for the F2P scene. The site is focused on the games players actually play: Counter-Strike 2, Dota 2, League of Legends, Valorant, Apex Legends, Fortnite, Marvel Rivals, Marvel Snap, and the wider F2P catalog. The name comes from MOBA terminology — the 'off-lane' is the part of the map where the work happens away from the spotlight.
Is OFFLANE free to read?
Yes. Every article, guide, tier list, and review on OFFLANE is free to read. No paywall, no sign-up required, no premium tier. The site is supported by affiliate links (Steam, Epic, Amazon) and house ads, not by reader subscriptions.
How does OFFLANE make money?
Four ways, all clearly disclosed. (1) Affiliate links — when you click a Steam, Epic Games Store, or Amazon deal on the site and buy something, we earn a small commission (1-5%). (2) Display ads — we run a gaming-tuned ad network stack (currently Adsterra + HilltopAds + Monetag + Coinzilla + A-ADS, with Ezoic and Mediavine queued when traffic qualifies). (3) Sponsored placements — publishers can sponsor articles or deal roundups; every sponsored placement is clearly labeled at the top of the article. (4) Newsletter sponsorship (future) — when the newsletter has enough subscribers, we'll run one sponsored mention per week. We never sell reviews or accept payment to change a verdict, score, or tier-list placement. The full breakdown is on the /about page and the rate card is at /sponsors.
How do you decide what to cover?
Two rules. (1) The game must be free-to-play at the entry level — no $60 buy-to-play titles. (2) The game must have a community of players who care about getting better at it, not just a news cycle. So we cover competitive multiplayer games (CS2, Dota 2, LoL, Valorant, Apex), live-service games with meta shifts (Marvel Snap, Fortnite), and the live broadcast channels that run their esports. We don't cover single-player story games, mobile gacha without a competitive scene, or anything behind a $30+ paywall.
Where does your data come from?
Game metadata (name, cover, genres, platforms) comes from the FreeToGame public catalog, refreshed monthly. Enrichment metadata (ESRB rating, max players, co-op, overview, Wikipedia URL, trailer) comes from LaunchBox's open games database (CC BY-SA 3.0), fetched once at setup. Live broadcast channel data is hand-curated by our editors from the official Twitch, YouTube, and Kick channels. Live match data (CS2, LoL, Dota 2) comes from OpenDota and PandaScore's free tiers. The patch-notes summaries are written from the official patch notes published by each game developer. We cite the source for every data point that isn't on the game's own official page.
Can I pitch you a story?
Yes. Email [email protected] with a one-paragraph summary and a link to anything you've written before. We're particularly interested in (a) deep-dive guides on a specific F2P game meta, (b) data-backed esports reporting, (c) hot takes on a recent patch. We pay competitive rates for committed contributors. We don't accept pitches for paid placements or for content that conflicts with our editorial coverage.
Do you have an RSS feed?
Yes. /rss.xml covers every article across all collections (news, reviews, guides, patch notes, deals, tier lists, editorial). Each collection also has its own feed: /rss/news, /rss/reviews, /rss/guides, /rss/patch-notes, /rss/deals, /rss/tier-lists, /rss/editorial. Standard RSS 2.0 format. We also publish an llms.txt at /llms.txt for AI answer engines (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude) to discover our content for citation.
How do you handle corrections?
Every article has a visible 'last updated' date in the byline. When we fix a factual error, we update the date and add a note at the bottom of the article ('Updated 2026-08-01: corrected the patch version from 7.39c to 7.39d'). When we change an opinion, we don't hide the previous version — the article's history is preserved in git. We do not rewrite old pieces to make them look better than they were.
What's your policy on AI-generated content?
Every published article is human-written, human-edited, and human-fact-checked. We use AI as a writing assistant (for research, outlining, and rough drafts), but every sentence that ships has been written or substantively edited by a human. We do not auto-publish AI-generated content. We do not use AI to write reviews (the verdict is always a human's). We do not use AI to generate cover images for real games. We do label any AI-assisted image (e.g., a chart) in the caption. The OFFLANE staff is currently 100% human.
Why the .xyz domain?
Two reasons. (1) .xyz is short, memorable, and the major alternative TLDs (.com, .gg, .tv, .game) were all taken by either the game publishers themselves or by squatters. (2) .xyz is one of the cheapest new TLDs, which keeps the operating cost of the site low — important because we don't have a paywall and rely entirely on affiliate revenue. The site is hosted on Cloudflare Pages at the edge, so the .xyz doesn't cost us any SEO penalty; the content quality, structured data, and Core Web Vitals do.
Looking for game-specific questions? Each guide on /guides has a Frequently Asked Questions section at the bottom, with structured data for AI answer engines. The home page also links to specific game pages where you can find the FAQ for that game.