Have you ever looked at an ugly NFT jpeg and thought "wow, that's how I want to be remembered. That's the digital legacy I would like to leave behind long after my restrictive physical form betrays me". No? Who cares. Become an NFT in Stalker 2.
Stalker 2 has just unveiled its "metahumans" initiative - a way for players to be immortalized in the game as an NFT. The lucky winners of an NFT auction will get the distinct honour of becoming an NPC in the game for all to see, but with added blockchain implementation, for some reason.
Speaking to The Verge, developer GSC Game World attempted to explain why the team is taking this direction with Stalker. "The idea of the related NFT is to give the right to recreate its owner’s identity within the game through one of the NPC", said CEO Evgeniy Grygorovych. "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".
Developers offering fans the chance to be an NPC in a game is nothing new. In fact, it has been done for some time, without the need for NFTs and blockchain. This makes Stalker 2's metahumans just the latest example of the controversial technology seeming to fix a problem that does not exist.
Before this, the infamous Peter Molyneux threw his hat into the ring. Molyneux unveiled a new "blockchain business sim", which sounds an awful lot like a normal business sim but now with a way to rip people off and harm the environment while you play.
In a similar vein, we've got Ubisoft adding NFTs to Ghost Recon Breakpoint. In this instance, it seems like they'll be pretty similar to the microtransaction we've been buying for years now. Just, y'know, likely way more expensive. Innovative stuff.