The tactical shooter Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Breakpoint will be the first AAA game to get in-game NFTs. Games publisher Ubisoft will use the newly introduced Quartz NFT platform on the Tezos blockchain. A beta version of Quartz will launch on December 9th.
Ubisoft Quartz will allow players to earn and buy in-game items, tokenized on the Tezos blockchain as NFTs. The NFT platform will first only support the PC version of Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Breakpoint, but more games will follow. Players can grab free NFTs, referred to as Digits in the game, on December 9th, 12th and 15th. There will be more drops in 2022.
Quartz will not be available to all players. Initially the service will only launch in the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Brazil, and Australia. Players who reach XP level 5 in the latest Ghost Recon game will unlock access to the in-game NFT drops. The Ghost Recon NFTs will for example be limited editions skins. According to Ubisoft players need to be at least 18 years old to make a Tezos wallet for the game, but thankfully the game itself comes with a 18+ age rating.
Check out Quartz here. Keep in mind that Quartz will (for now) only be used for primary sales. All secondary sales needs to happen on NFT marketplaces on the Tezos blockchain, like Objkt.com and Rarible.
Ubisoft and blockchain
Ubisoft has been experimenting with blockchain technology for a couple of years. They worked with various blockchain game studios, including Sorare and Sky Mavis. They also invested in Animoca Brands. So far Ubisoft launched a fantasy football test game earlier this year, and some Raving Rabbids NFTs for charity. This is the first time Ubisoft is implementing NFTs in one of their major IPs.
However, we need to note that Ghost Recon Breakpoint has been a disappointment at launch back in 2019. In an earnings call in October 2019 Ubisoft stated that the sales and reception of the game had been ‘very disappointing’. The Metacritic score is 58 out of 100, while the user rating only reached 28 points.
