Editor's Note: The subject of NFTs is currently a very controversial topic in the gaming community. IGN urges community members to be respectful when engaging in conversation around this subject and does not endorse harassment of any kind.

PUBG: Battlegrounds' creator Krafton is developing an NFT metaverse in Unreal Engine in collaboration with NAVER, the company behind Asia's largest metaverse platform, ZEPETO, which has more than 290 million users.

Krafton will use its experience creating online games like PUBG to build the virtual world alongside a user-generated content creation tool in the Web 3.0 and NFT-based project.

NAVER Z, the subsidiary of NAVER that Krafton has entered a memorandum of understanding with, meaning a nonbinding agreement, will use its experience designing and running ZEPETO to manage the metaverse's services.

HyungChul Park, lead of the Web 3.0 team at Krafton, said: "This partnership between Krafton and NAVER Z is bolstered by each company’s unique expertise and shared global focused as they look toward a future driven by NFTs and metaverses.

"By combining Krafton's existing technologies and research on how to build scalable Web 3.0 creator-driven ecosystems with NAVER Z and ZEPETO’s experience and capabilities, we’re confident we can build a high-quality user-generated content-driven open metaverse that stands apart from other services and vitalizes the global creator economy through NFT technologies."

The two companies announced their partnership hours after Krafton made equity investments into Seoul Action Blue (purchasing $2.5 million worth of stock) and its subsidiary XBYBLUE (purchasing $4.1 million worth of stock).

Seoul Action Blue is an affiliate of South Korea's largest art auctioneer and aims to expand the market by running a joint art purchasing platform while XBYBLUE operates a service that secures and curates IPs.

NFTs (non-fungible tokens) are essentially one-of-a-kind pieces of online content that can be bought and sold - imagine fine-art collecting but digitally. This speaks to the specialty of both companies, and Krafton has also entered a memorandum of understanding with them to develop NFT-orientated products.

NFTs have been a polarizing topic in the gaming industry with companies appearing hot and cold on the new, untested market.

Worms creator Team 17 recently announced and cancelled an NFT project within 24 hours while STALKER 2 developer GSC Game World went a step further and cancelled its plans within one hour. Voice actor Troy Baker, known for roles in a number of games including The Last of Us, also recently ventured into NFTs before quickly withdrawing following fan backlash, and Indie game marketplace Itch.io called NFTs a scam.

There is still something of a goldrush in the industry however, with Krafton being the latest to get on board. It joins retailer GameStop, who recently announced that it's launching an NFT marketplace, and Assassin's Creed publisher Ubisoft who has also moved into the NFT space, with a company executive commenting that "gamers don't get it".

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer who occasionally remembers to tweet @thelastdinsdale.

Jak and Daxter could be the next PlayStation franchise to receive a TV or movie adaptation. Sony has lately been pushing film and TV adaptations of Uncharted and The Last of Us, and it looks like the initiative won't end there.

In an interview with Digital Trends, Uncharted movie director Ruben Fleischer said that he's developing a potential adaptation of the classic franchise. Fleischer said, "I’m actually working on Jak and Daxter, a version of that, for PlayStation, which I think would be really cool to bring to life."

Sony hasn't officially announced any plans, but Fleischer has at least confirmed that it's being discussed. This also means that there's some hope for a possible new Jak and Daxter game, as PlayStation released a Ratchet & Clank animated film, which led to a 2016 reboot on PlayStation 4.

The release of the Uncharted film later this month also lined up quite nicely with the launch of Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection late last month on PlayStation 5. The Last of Us TV adaptation is heading to HBO, and there are rumors about a remake of the 2013 game as well.

It's been a while since Jak and Daxter has seen the spotlight as its last proper release was in 2009 with Jak and Daxter: The Lost Frontier on PlayStation 2 and PlayStation Portable. The first three games in the series were remastered for the Jak and Daxter Collection on PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita in 2012 and 2013, respectively.

Uncharted: The Movie has gone through some messy development issues since 2008, but it's finally releasing after 14 years on February 18, 2022.

George Yang is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @yinyangfooey

With Book of Boba Fett wrapping up this week, all eyes are turning to Obi-Wan Kenobi, which will star Ewan McGregor in his return to the famous role.

Speaking with Forbes, McGregor opened up about the new series, saying that he "loved" reprising the role of Obi-Wan Kenobi. At 50, McGregor isn't far removed from the age of Alex Guinness circa 1977, who was 62 when he first donned the battered brown Jedi robes in the original Star Wars.

With Obi-Wan Kenobi being McGregor's first major turn in the role of Kenobi since 2005's Revenge of the Sith, the Scottish actor reflected on what the prequels have meant for younger fans who have since come of age.

"I mean it's quite interesting, after the experience of making the first three films and living through sort of their reception in the world, which wasn't always glowing, I have to say," McGregor said. "And then now, meeting the generation who we made those films for, the children then — and now, people in their late teens or early 20s, those people who were kids who we made those films for, they loved them. To them, they're their Star Wars films, you know? For us, it was the original films of the ‘70s, but for them, it was our films were their Star Wars. So to step back into his shoes again now and do a series, a whole series about Obi-Wan Kenobi for those fans, it just makes me really happy."

Once vilified and virtually ignored, Star Wars is increasingly embracing prequel nostalgia. Book of Boba Fett includes a number of direct nods to Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones, among them a glimpse of Kamino, where Kenobi battled Jango Fett.

With Obi-Wan Kenobi focusing on the exiled Jedi's time in the deserts of Tatooine, the new show figures to include equal parts nostalgia for the original trilogy and the prequels. Among them are hints of a secret duel between Darth Vader and Kenobi — the proverbial rematch of the century between master and student.

Beyond that, McGregor only offers hints of what's to come in Obi-Wan Kenobi, praising director Deborah Chow and talking about what it's like to reunite with Hayden Christensen, who played Anakin Skywalker in the prequels.

"It was a great experience. Deborah Chow directed all the episodes and she’s really good. She directed a couple [episodes] of The Mandalorian and she’s a really great director. She really knows the Star Wars world, inside out, far more than I do," McGregor laughed. "We just had a great time. I think it's no secret that Hayden Christensen comes back and we got to play scenes together again as Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker and it was just fantastic to work with him again.

"I'm not going to give away anything else about the storyline, only I think it's really going to satisfy Star Wars fans. I always felt there was a story between Episode III where I finished playing Obi-Wan in the movies and Episode IV where Alec Guinness is Obi-Wan Kenobi. The [Obi-Wan Kenobi series] writers and Deb and I and everyone, I think we crafted or they crafted a very fine storyline. I think people are going to like it."

We'll know soon enough whether Obi-Wan Kenobi passes muster with Star Wars fans, who have been mostly split on Book of Boba Fett. Obi-Wan Kenobi will release on May 25.

Kat Bailey is a Senior News Editor at IGN

Pokemon Legends: Arceus takes place in the past of Pokemon Diamond and Pearl, in the area that will one day become the Sinnoh region. So it's naturally full of connections to Diamond and Pearl, including story threads, characters, native Pokemon, and of course its map.

It would have been easy for Game Freak to take some liberties here, but the map of Hisui you explore in Legends is surprisingly accurate to the Sinnoh we know from the fourth generation of Pokemon games, right down to where towns are in relation to one another and some of the geography in each area. And even if you're not looking hard, you can find lots of obvious references.

Spoilers for Pokemon Legends: Arceus' map locations below:

The most obvious starting point for a little map exploration is Jubilife Village, which obviously will become Jubilife City in Diamond and Pearl. It's surrounded on two sides by the Obsidian Fieldlands.

Zooming in on Obsidian Fieldlands puts the Sandgem Flats to the south of Jubilife, where Sandgem Town will eventually be, with Lake Verity in between.

There's no corresponding location for Twinleaf Town, sadly, but you can imagine it would be on the far south coast of Sandgem Flats.

Ramanas Island is roughly where Ramanas Park (or Pal Park) is, though it's not really an island anymore by Diamond and Pearl.

To the north are the Floaro Gardens, which have a large flower patch in the center where Shaymin can be encountered later. This seems to line up with Floaroma Town, though it's forgivably a bit off where it would be in Diamond and Pearl in relation to Jubilife.

Then to the east, still in the Fieldlands, you can find Oreburrow Tunnel, right about where Oreburgh City (or its associated mine, more likely) will end up.

The other areas of the map don't have quite the same extreme level of close correspondance, but there's still plenty to be found. In the Crimson Mirelands, the Unown-filled Solaceon Ruins seem a bit off in relation to other landmarks, but it's still easy to see how the future Solaceon Town ended up built around them.

It's mostly off due to its relationship with Lake Valor, which is to the north in Legends rather than its normal place to the southeast in Diamond and Pearl. But we'll forgive them this one.

You can also find Spiritomb's dwelling in the same very rough area, though again it's thrown off a bit by the location of the other two.

Cobalt Coastland is also pretty tricky to find 1:1 comparisons to, though the Veilstone Cape is exactly right next to where Veilstone City will eventually be.

And Firespit Island could easily be the beginnings of Stark Mountain in the post-game Diamond and Pearl Survival Area, with Heatran found in both.

Meanwhile, in the Alabaster Icelands, everything is centered around Snowpoint Temple, which exists in Diamond and Pearl within Snowpoint City.

And Lake Acuity is quite close by, very accurate to its future Sinnoh location.

Perhaps most striking is the Coronet Highlands running through the center of the map and corresponding to Mt. Coronet's modern-day location, including landmarks like Wayward Cave and Celestica Ruins — aka Celestic Town.

In Legends: Arceus, we climb all over the highlands and the mountain, and also get to visit the Temple of Sinnoh — which (after a certain plot event) surprisingly looks about the same as its counterpart in Diamond and Pearl, explaining how it got its name.

A lot of these places don't have too much in the way of dramatic landmarks to indicate that they'll eventually be something in the modern-day Pokeworld, though some small details can still be found. The Horseshoe Plains, for instance, correspond with areas in Diamond and Pearl that are great to catch Ponyta. And even though there's no Sunyshore City, it's easy to see why the solar-paneled city was built on the coastlands where it eventually ends up.

There are tons of other little easter eggs like this, including many characters who appear to be the ancestors of characters you meet in later Pokemon games. If you're still on your Pokemon journey, IGN has plenty of detailed guides both for Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, as well as Pokemon Legends: Arceus. We also reviewed Legends: Arceus, finding it to be a wonderfully ambitious refresh of Pokemon mechanics that is unfortunately set in an empty, repetitive world.

Rebekah Valentine is a news reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.

Microsoft has confirmed that "Call of Duty and other popular Activision Blizzard titles" will not just be released on PlayStation to honor existing contracts, but "beyond the existing agreement and into the future."

In a piece published to explain how the company will adapt to gain regulatory approval for its Activision Blizzard takeover, president Brad Smith addressed concerns that popular games would no longer be available on competing consoles:

"To be clear, Microsoft will continue to make Call of Duty and other popular Activision Blizzard titles available on PlayStation through the term of any existing agreement with Activision. And we have committed to Sony that we will also make them available on PlayStation beyond the existing agreement and into the future so that Sony fans can continue to enjoy the games they love."

Previous reports have indicated that the next three Call of Duty games would come to PlayStation, but not indicated what's beyond that.

Smith added that Microsoft would be looking to assure the same for Activision Blizzard games on Nintendo consoles: "We are also interested in taking similar steps to support Nintendo’s successful platform. We believe this is the right thing for the industry, for gamers and for our business."

There are caveats here, of course. Smith does not commit to all traditionally multiformat Activision Blizzard games coming to PlayStation and Nintendo, nor does he commit to this agreement existing in perpetuity. This is to say nothing of brand new games developed within Activision Blizzard after a takeover takes place.

Smith's post also announces changes and commitments for the Microsoft Store, in line with showing regulators that the company is encouraging rather than stifling competition in the gaming and tech space. Smith points to access, fairness, and openness in Microsoft's app store plans (including allowing developers to use their own payment systems rather than Microsoft's own).

"Too much friction exists today between creators and gamers; app store policies and practices on mobile devices restrict what and how creators can offer games and what and how gamers can play them," Smith wrote. "Our large investment to acquire Activision Blizzard further strengthens our resolve to remove this friction on behalf of creators and gamers alike. We want to enable world-class content to reach every gamer more easily across every platform."

While FTC and Justice Department investigations will take place for some time before the Activision Blizzard takeover is complete, legal experts and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella seemingly don't see the deal being blocked.

Joe Skrebels is IGN's Executive Editor of News. Follow him on Twitter. Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.

Sony has announced Gran Turismo Sophy, an artificial intelligence built in collaboration between Sony AI, Polyphony Digital, and the cloud gaming team at Sony Interactive Entertainment.

Revealed as part of the Race Together Media Event, Sony claims that the new artificial intelligence, which has been trained using Gran Turismo Sport, can race competitively against the best Gran Turismo players in the world.

In development tests, Gran Turismo Sophy was pitted against four of the world's best Gran Turismo Sport players across two separate events, one in July 2021 and a second in October 2021. The first test saw Sophy score 70 points across three different races, while the human team scored 86. After a few months of training, Gran Turismo Sophy was able to score 104 points in a second round of tests, versus the human team's score of 52. Sophy won every race in this second test, and set the best lap time.

Sophy is trained through a deep reinforcement learning system, using Sony Interactive Entertainment's cloud gaming infrastructure. The system trains the AI in three areas: Physical Realism, which teaches Sophy to control a car and exploit features of track, Realtime Race Tactics, which coaches the AI to master passing and optimise its use of the racing line, and Sports Etiquette, which trains Sophy to drive aggressive but fairly.

Sony notes that Gran Turismo Sophy is a different kind of AI to the likes of artificial intelligences used in chess, shogi, Go and things such as AlphaStar and OpenAI Five AI developed for RTS video games. Where those AIs generally work with tactics and strategy, Sophy must also deal with simulated physics, too. Essentially, the AI has to learn how to drive a car and deal with the physical properties of that, and then learn how to win a race against human opponents.

While it was a goal of Sony AI to develop an artificial intelligence that race competitively against the top Gran Turismo drivers, the team also saw importance in making an AI that would also be fun for the top drivers to race against. Gran Turismo Sophy has been designed not to feel unfair or seem outlandishly superhuman.

While Gran Turismo Sophy is already displaying very impressive results, it's not something you should expect to see in GT7 at launch. However, "Sony AI and PDI will explore how to integrate GT Sophy into future releases of the Gran Turismo series," says Michael Spranger, COO of Sony AI, in a new post on the Sony AI website.

For more on Gran Turismo, check out our final preview of Gran Turismo 7.

Matt Purslow is IGN's UK News and Entertainment Writer.

It's never good news for DC's heroes when the word "Crisis" is bandied about. DC is gearing up for another Crisis event in Summer 2022, and it couldn't come at a worse time for our heroes.

DC has announced Dark Crisis, a new event comic being billed as the company's "biggest story of 2022." This crossover builds on the foundation of past epics like 1985's Crisis on Infinite Earths and 2005's Infinite Crisis, as a familiar cosmic villain seeks to restore the original DC multiverse.

Dark Crisis is written by Joshua Williamson (Batman) and drawn by Daniel Sampere (Action Comics). It's no coincidence this story is debuting shortly after Williamson chronicles the death of the Justice League in April's Justice League #75. Dark Crisis builds directly on the events of that issue and other recent DC series like Infinite Frontier. This new conflict will unfold in a time when nearly every member of the League is feared dead, leaving the newly minted Superman, Jon Kent, to spearhead a new team. But as Jon will discover, not every hero is willing to put their life on the line for what may well be a suicide mission.

The instigator of this new Crisis happens to be a key figure from the original Crisis on Infinite Earths, Pariah. Originally a scientist named Kell Mossa, this tormented figure accidentally caused the destruction of his world when he attempted to view the creation of the universe and attracted the wrath of the Anti-Monitor. Now Pariah seems to have found a way of restoring the countless universes the Anti-Monitor devoured, even if it means harnessing the cosmic power known as the Great Darkness and using it to destroy Earth-0.

The preview art featured above offers a few clues as to the events of Dark Crisis. DC previously teased that only one member of the Justice League will survive the bloodbath in issue #75, and the cover to Dark Crisis #1 suggests Black Adam is that survivor. That same cover also suggests Pariah will be joining forces with a very powerful lineup of DC villains, including Darkseid, Ares, Trigon, Deathstroke, Doomsday and even Black Lantern Corps leader Nekron.

Dark Crisis itself is a seven-issue limited series that will ship monthly beginning in June 2022. If past Crisis events are any indication, readers can probably expect a number of tie-in comics as well. For now, DC is only revealing two prologue books shipping in May. The first of these, Dark Crisis #0, is being released as part of Free Comic Book Day 2022 on May 7. The second, an anthology special called Justice League: The Road to Dark Crisis #1, will release on May 31.

“Dark Crisis is an epic DCU event about legacy,” said Williamson in DC's press release. “It will have all the giant, fun cosmic battles and Multiversal set pieces, but it’s not about reboots, retcons, or rewriting time and space. At its core it’s about the characters and the relationships that we’ve seen built over DC’s great history. Dark Crisis spins out of Justice League #75 'DEATH OF THE JUSTICE LEAGUE' and connects all the story threads across the DCU since Infinite Frontier #0 in a major way. Unifying the new legacy of the DCU as we honor the classic. You can't miss it!”

“To me, Dark Crisis is a big celebration for all DC fans,” said Sampere. “It’s a huge event full of epic heart, an event that embraces the past while looking to the future. Joshua and I are the biggest DC fans, and this is our love letter to these characters and this universe.”

DC has also released a video teaser for Dark Crisis on YouTube.

Are you intrigued by this first look at Dark Crisis? Annoyed that 2008's Final Crisis wasn't actually the final Crisis? Let us know what you think of this news in the comments below. And check out the video below to brush up on what to expect from DC in 2022:

Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter.

Mission: Impossible 7 and 8 will reportedly see Tom Cruise step out as Ethan Hunt for the last time as the action-packed film series reaches its final "culmination."

According to a report from Variety, an unnamed insider has indicated that the seventh and eighth Mission: Impossible films will serve as a "culmination" of the entire film series and deliver a "sendoff" for Cruise's Ethan Hunt character, who has been the face of the franchise since 1996 when the first installment of the spy thriller series hit theaters.

The first entry, directed by Brian De Palma, became the third highest-grossing movie of the year and went on to spawn a monumental franchise, spanning more than two decades with six entries up to now. The most recent installment, 2018's Mission: Impossible - Fallout, turned out to be the best-reviewed and highest-grossing film in the franchise to date.

The next two sequels in the long-running series were originally meant to be filmed back-to-back, however, the production suffered numerous delays as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The shifts in the shooting schedule then caused conflicts with Cruise and his other commitments, including promotional duties for Top Gun: Maverick.

As a further consequence of these delays, Paramount Pictures and Skydance have postponed the release dates of Mission: Impossible 7 and 8 multiple times. The latest update came at the beginning of the year when it was announced that the two beleaguered films have been delayed once again, and will now be released in 2023 and 2024.

Variety reports that part of the reasoning for the release dates being moved is that Cruise wants the eighth film, which is about to go into production in South Africa, to wrap production before the seventh film is released because the seventh entry apparently ends on a cliffhanger, and Cruise is keen to make sure that the two parts fit together seamlessly.

Adele Ankers-Range is a freelance writer for IGN. Follow her on Twitter.

Bandai Namco has made an official announcement recognising the current technical difficulties with the Dark Souls games on PC, and has said that it is now looking into Elden Ring ahead of launch to ensure the problem does not affect the new FromSoftware game.

In a statement on Twitter, Bandai Namco and FromSoftware said that they are "aware of the technical difficulties players have experienced with the Dark Souls suite of games on PC", referring to the fact that servers are down after a "serious exploit" was discovered.

#DarkSouls pic.twitter.com/ZRhX9OcvQe

— Dark Souls (@DarkSoulsGame) February 9, 2022

The companies offered their thanks to fans who have reported the issue. "Thanks to you, we have identified the cause and are working on fixing the issue."

"In addition, we have extended the investigation to Elden Ring - our upcoming title launching on February 25th - and have made sure the necessary security measures are in place for this title on all target platforms," the statement reads.

This suggests that Elden Ring's online features should be available on PC when it launches later this month. However, the situation has meant that severs for Dark Souls will not be returning until later. "Due to the time required to set up proper testing environments, online services for the Dark Souls series on PC will not resume until after the release of Elden Ring," says the statement.

"We will continue to do everything we can to bring back these services as soon as possible," it continues. "We will make an announcement as soon as the schedule is determined for resuming online services."

The issue affecting FromSoftware games on PC was discovered last month, with Reddit users claiming a RCE (Remote Code Execution) exploit had been discovered that could let hackers "run arbitrary code on your machine without permission." The users who discovered the exploit noted that it could affect Elden Ring, but thankfully FromSoft's work on the issue seems to mean that Elden Ring will launch on PC without problems.

For more from Elden Ring, check out our hands-on preview and details on the game's multiplayer. Director Hidetaka Miyazaki has also said meeting George R.R. Martin to discuss Elden Ring was "like speaking with an old friend", but thinks Martin would be "shocked" at what he's done to his characters.

Matt Purslow is IGN's UK News and Entertainment Writer.

More than 60,000 Battlefield 2042 players have signed a petition asking for their money back, as the game continues to receive criticism for its slow update roll out and perceived lack of features.

Eurogamer spotted the petition, which requested that refunds available on Steam be extended to PlayStation and Xbox customers, and said EA made "a mockery" of customers who purchased the game.

The publisher admitted itself that Battlefield 2042 "did not meet expectations" and developer DICE has recently delayed a number of updates to the game including its first season pass and the addition of a scoreboard.

The petition reads: "EA’s release of Battlefield 2042 was a mockery of every customer who purchased this video game for $70 (USD) due to EA’s false advertising. Battlefield 2042 has cost consumers millions of dollars in damages and upset thousands of customers worldwide."

Complaints arose almost immediately when Battlefield 2042 launched on November 19 with server and UI problems, and fans quickly noticed a number of features they thought were missing from the game.

DICE announced on February 1 that Battlefield 2042's Season One would be delayed so the studio could focus on more immediate issues in the game, starting with an end-of-round scoreboard being added. But the developer said two days later that this update would also be delayed until March as it had to release a hotfix to tackle game instability issues caused by the previous patch.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer who occasionally remembers to tweet @thelastdinsdale.