S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 developer quickly cancels NFT plans after fan outcry

Enlarge / A screenshot from Dmarket's now-defunct promotional page for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 NFTs. (credit: Dmarket)

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chernobyl developer GSC Game World is quickly backing off plans to integrate non-fungible tokens into the upcoming game, a decision that came just a day after announcing the idea and hours after the company publicly defended its position on Thursday.

The short saga of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 NFTs started Wednesday morning, when GSC Game World announced it was partnering with NFT marketplace Dmarket to offer "the rights to certain unique items" to players via NFTs. To start, the company planned to auction off three NFTs that represented the opportunity to be inserted into the game as a "metahuman" NPC through the company's photogrammetry scanning process.

In an interview with WCCFTech, GSC Game World CEO Evgeniy Grygorovych said that after the initial auction, "the owner of the metahuman will be able to trade the right to be a metahuman [NFT] until a certain date before the official game release" (that release is planned for April 28, 2022). In February, a second planned NFT drop would have offered vaguely defined and "highly secretive genesis packs" that "won't influence the gameplay itself or give in-game advantages over other players," Grygorovych said.

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