The developer of Stalker 2: Heart of Chernobyl, GSC Game World, is bringing non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and metaverse stuff to the game, for some reason.

In a post on Twitter, the company revealed that it was creating a Stalker Metaverse that players have to purchase a NFT to access. This token would be their "metahuman" – avatar I guess? – and can be traded on.

Metahuman NFTs are being auctioned from January and allow purchasers to recreate their apperance in game. GSC says that this metaverse aspect of the title is "completely optional" and would not have an impact on gameplay.

"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," GSC boss Evgeniy Grygorovych told GamesIndustry.biz.

"The right to become a metahuman will be tradable between users until the final claim date."

He added: "Besides this, we are also looking at an opportunity for the owner of the meta rights to be able to claim the metahuman after the game release. Basically, there will be no limit to trading the related NFT until the owner claims it in the game and goes through the process of scanning and appearing in the game as an NPC."