The patent, titled “Tracking Unique In-Game Digital Assets Using Tokens on a Distributed Ledger” shows a theoretical mechanism for tracking the changes to in-game assets, including ownership, visual appearance and metadata (thanks, Gamesual). “Individuals often find it meaningful to own or use unique physical items related to respected celebrities or activities,” the patent description notes. “In traditional video games, multiple instances of the same in-game item exist within the same copy of the video game and/or within different copies of the video game....

As reported by Deadline, the new Ghost of Tsushima film adaptation will be penned by Takashi Doscher, who previously wrote and directed romantic sci-fi romance, Only, alongside ESPN documentary A Fighting Chance. Deadline says the adaptation is still in “early development” and, as such, details remain scarce. However, the publication previously confirmed the project - a collaboration between Sony Pictures and PlayStation Productions - will, perhaps unsurprisingly, follow the adventures of game protagonist Jin Sakai....

We recently played the Spirittea demo and, while it only covers the game’s first hour, it gave us a taste of what running the bathhouse is like. Though the tasks available to you in the demo are simple - such as cutting wood and cleaning towels - they certainly keep you busy, ensuring there’s no awkward moment where you’re waiting around for something to happn. The spirits themselves also bring a puzzle element to running the bathhouse....

A Splinter Cell animated adaptation was first rumoured last July, but Ubisoft and Netflix have now made the show official. It’ll follows the adventures of iconic video game series protagonist Sam Fisher after he’s recruited to work for the NSA’s mysterious Echelon Division. Expect black ops missions, stealth, and military tactics in a series that’s being written by John Wick scribe Derek Kolstad. That’s pretty much all Netflix has shared right now, other than this appropriately shadowy glimpse of Sam as he’ll appear in the show: We know even less about Netflix’s newly announced animated Far Cry adaptation, but that knowledge void has been filled by a deluge of information the Blood Dragon series....

Season 0 for the free-to-play Halo meets Portal shooter includes a new battle pass with 100 levels, new seasonal challenges and rewards, a new map, and new modes. Trailer is below: The new mode is called Contamination. Here, the contaminated player equips only a melee weapon and contaminates as many other players as possible by killing them, ending the round when all other players become infected. Players who become contaminated then spawn and switch sides, garnering points for contaminating as many players as they can....

According to Michsuzuki and spotted and translated by our friends at VGC, Square Enix’s CEO Yosuke Matsuda confirmed at the company’s recent Shareholders’ Meeting that it was “too early to make Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy blockchain games”, emphasising that he was “not thinking about that” for upcoming releases. VGC also purports that the company is keen to create “story-focused” NFTs, too. The comments follow a controversial New Year’s letter in which Matsuda expressed hope that NFTs and blockchain technology will become a “major trend” in gaming, stating that he believes they will be major areas of growth for the industry in 2022, including cloud gaming, AI, and blockchain games....

The game’s official website reveals Star Citizen has now raised a whopping $351,026,475 from over three million customers. Star Citizen hit $300m in June last year. Over eight years after its initial crowdfunding effort began, Star Citizen is still without a release date, although parts of the game have been released in early access form. Squadron 42, the single-player portion of the game, is still in development but does not have a release date....

A new update has been released in the beta channel, bringing a new storage manager. The new interface features a tabbed view listing all the drives in your system, a visual representation of what types of files are taking up storage (games, DLC, and other apps), and a list of all the games in each drive. This is a massive improvement from the previous interface, which was literally just a list of where your library was located, how many games were installed in each drive, and how much used and free space there was....

The Viking-themed survival and crafting game launched as an Early Access title on 2nd February, and quickly rose to the upper echelons of Steam and Twitch. Valheim hit a peak of 160,000 concurrent users on Steam, and had over 127,000 peak viewers on Twitch during its first week on sale. As it happens, our Aoife, Zoe and Ian are playing Valheim live now in the video below: Valheim is the debut game from Swedish studio Iron Gate, and is published by Coffee Stain (Goat Simulator, Satisfactory)....

Along with the usual price-slicing, Steam are offering free stickers for each day of the sale, which feature a wee cartoon Ox person doing cute and relatable things. But enough about the tat - what about the deals? So far we’ve seen the Witcher 3 for just a fiver, Overcooked! 2 for just a tenner, and Fallout: New Vegas for the price of a not very good coffee. It’s also worth checking out the daily offer, which today covers spooky-ooky retro RPG Omori....

Square Enix just announced the date during its Tokyo Games Show 2021 livestream, and also showed a fresh (and overall, much better) trailer for the much-memed game. The trailer also confirmed a second demo is on the way for PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, with multiplayer features included. [UPDATE: This is already now live!] Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Oranges is an action-focused spin-off made in collaboration with Nioh developer Team Ninja....

Players of the game’s closed beta last weekend explored the options menu and discovered some great features intended to make the game more accessible. That includes adjusting the volume of various sound effects and adding a “distance to opponent” sound. Watch on YouTube Street Fighter 6 - World Tour Opening Movie: The Meaning of Strength The latter was shared by Twitter user kurominah, with a beeping sound raising and lowering pitch depending on how far away the player is from their opponent....

On a fundamental level, Moonbreaker, which has been in development for around five years, is surprisingly straightforward; each game sees players - either working against a human or AI opponent - strategising their way around a board, using careful positioning to their advantage as they work to annihilate the opposing player’s Captain. So far so straightforward, but the complexity arrives when you begin factoring in the tactical options available to players during a match, including the likes of cover - which can either impenetrable or penetrable with an accuracy cost - plus Captains, crew members, ship assists, and resource management....

In a statement to Kotaku, Shevlin said: “Sadly archive.org sent me their usual takedown notice email telling me Nintendo of America challenged the copyright of the scan and it was removed. “Frankly I’d love to challenge the legitimacy of that and how Nintendo of America would have anything to do with a Nintendo of Japan licensed Gem Books guide from 1995 but I can’t really fight the Nintendo legal team here....

The handheld shoot ’em-up, originally launched in 2008, can be found by searching directly for the title in the PlayStation Store (thanks to reddit user Turb0_Thunder). You won’t find it (yet) via the Classic Catalogue menu, although it’s unclear if this is because it’s not due to go live yet, or a deliberate secret. (Either way, PlayStation’s store interface isn’t the clearest to filter and search through.) Super Stardust Portable has also become available in the North American PlayStation Store....

Paweł Selinger, who had worked as “narration designer” on Dying Light 2 for the last two years, left Technland at the end of 2020 after over 22 years at the company. “Paweł Selinger, who has been the narration designer for the last two years, decided at the end of 2020 to end his cooperation with Techland and to pursue his further career elsewhere,” Techland told PC Gamer. “Paweł spent most of his professional life at Techland and he, among others, takes credit for the success of the series Call of Juarez....

Shredder’s Revenge has, of course, gone down a storm since its release on PlayStation, Xbox, Switch, and PC. Eurogamer’s Christian Donlan was just one of many to be won over by its charmingly reinvigorated classic side-scrolling brawling action (which comes with a bunch of pleasing mod-cons, including online co-op support for up to six players), calling it a “wonderful thing, colourful, pacey, and filled with perfect Turtles music.” Clearly, with Shredder’s Revenge having now officially surpassed the 1m sales mark - as announced on Twitter - plenty of others have equally been in the mood for Leonardo, Michelangelo, Donatello, and Raphael’s retro return....

Sure you do. It’s right here: Arnie’s cyborg alter ego and Linda Hamilton’s Sarah Connor are both now available in Fortnite - the latest characters to be rifted onto its island during its hunter-themed season. Sadly, there’s no option to have Arnie appear as his normal fleshy self. The pair have been teased for the past few days in-game via a portal near Steamy Stacks, which contained a peek at an area fans figured out was from Terminator 2....

Available now on PC, PlayStation and Xbox, the update weighs in at around 11-13GB and also adds “combat improvements… localisation optimisations and general quality of life changes”. A specific fix has been made for an issue on PS4, where the game’s Trophies were not syncing. This has now been addressed. So, what’s specifically changed? Well, users playing with the new patch installed report faster healing animations, plus quicker weapon switching and reloads....

Capitalising on the success of similar adaptations that turned The Witcher and Castlevania into strong shows on the streaming service, it’s now rumoured that Netflix is looking to repeat the formula with a show based upon Bethesda’s action RPG, too. The rumour comes via industry insider Daniel Ritchtman (£) (thanks, Game Rant), who reports Netflix is looking to adapt the fan-favourite franchise. Admittedly it’s only a rumour right now - as yet we haven’t heard from Bethesda, Microsoft or Netflix - but given there are already plans to turn Fallout 4 into a TV show, it’s certainly a plausible one....