Ubisoft continues its exhausting NFT drive, this time with Assassin’s Creed

Ezio didn’t dive into hay bales for this

Ubisoft, undaunted, is continuing to mine its catalog of IPs for new NFT/blockchain ventures, announcing this morning that it intends to release a new line of pretendo pictures based upon its hugely successful time-hopping series Assassin’s Creed. This new venture, at the very least, has something of a physical form.

The Assassin’s Creed Smart Collectibles line consists of images of characters from the long-running stealth series, replicated as “Digital Souls”. The variance in these images will be implemented via the costumes and equipment each Soul will be wearing and carrying. Once purchased, the NFT “owner” will then be able to request a 3D-printed cube of their Soul, featuring a replica of their character. These cubes can then be registered via a special companion app.

https://twitter.com/ACSmartCollect/status/1656636997069336578?s=20

There is also a form of “Pass” available for the new line. 1500 “Eden Passes” will be made available, which offer the owner the opportunity to buy exclusive drops, an exclusive Digital Soul, as well as a way to queue-jump the 3D printing queue. Yes, it’s essentially DLC for your NFT. The weirdest part is, some responses to actual cubes themselves have been positive, with some fans asking why they can’t just start a range of character cubes, without the blockchain buffoonery.

Prices for the NFTs or the Eden Pass were not revealed.

If you detect more than a hint of exhaustion in my reporting, then I’m only trending off the continued downward spiral that has hit the NFT/Blockchain market since that weird window where we were being told, endlessly, that NFTs were not only THE currency of the future, but also that people against the idea just “didn’t get how much it benefitted them”. This period was, of course, followed by a string of situations where publishers were ragged on for embracing the controversial technology, no less Ubisoft themselves — who remain steadfastly drawn to the dopey idea.

Despite the complete collapse of cryptocurrency company FTX, the embarrassment of Meta, or the contempt displayed towards studios such as Square Enix, and Sega for promoting these schemes, new NFT projects still pop up from time to time. The Pokemon Company recently advertised for an NFT/Metaverse expert, Yu Suzuki announced a line of Virtua Fighter collectibles, and, just last week, pro-wrestling promotion Impact announced its own line, to the immediate derision of its fanbase and a whopping 278 Likes.

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