GSC Game World will be the latest in a growing list of developers to use NFTs, or Non-Fungible Tokens, in their upcoming game S.T.A.L.K.E.R. II: Heart of Chernobyl. This news shortly follows Ubisoft’s announcement that they would be introducing a Blockchain-based service, Quartz, to implement NFTs for their games as well as our own coverage of upcoming MMO World Eternal Online which is being built around the Blockchain.
GSC announced that they would be introducing the “S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Metaverse,” which is intended to “use blockchain technology to let the community own a piece of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2.” This will include the opportunity to become what the referred to as the “first-ever metahuman,” which the studio described as a non-player character which was rendered in very high detail. GSC is partnering with DMarket, an NFT platform, on the new item.
An auction is being held, allowing players to bid on an NFT offering that prize so that they can become a “metahuman.” This auction is set to take place in January 2022. Whoever does win this NFT, allowing the winner to be scanned into the game as an NPC, will have the ability to buy and sell it up to a specific claim date to follow the auction.
For the person that does end up with this NFT, GSC Game World CEO Evgeniy Grygorovych stated to The Verge in an emailed statement that:
The idea of the related NFT is to give the right to recreate its owner’s identity within the game through one of the NPCs. The person will need to come to our studio for a detailed scanning procedure and after that, we will have everything to make this person appear in the game world as one of the characters.
The studio also plans to release more NFTs as well, though they did not state what kinds when they were asked. While players have not been largely receptive to NFTs being added to their games, more companies have begun exploring ways to incorporate them. It should be noted that the outline here, to include a player in the game as an NPC, has actually been done multiple times before such as in Final Fantasy XV. The fact that this is being run through NFTs is a showcase of the current popular trend. Whether this will remain popular past 2022 is anybody’s guess, though this is the culmination of many years of growth for the blockchain format.
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