"We are not a blockchain game," says the opening slide of Everywhere assistant game director Adam Whiting's presentation. The weight of shared unease among the journalists present in the conference room lifts – not because any of us have any stake in Build A Rocket Boy's incoming debut venture (not that I'm aware of, at least), but because it seems clear at this stage we'll hear the letters N, F, and T stringed together a lot less over the course of the studio visit than we otherwise might have. "Why no NFTs?" says Leslie Benzies – former Rockstar North president, ex-lead Grand Theft Auto developer, Build A Rocket Boy founder, and current Everywhere game director – later in the day. "Because we don't need them."
The confusion, for those out of the loop, stems from last year. Shortly after the game's grand reveal at Gamescom's Opening Night Live, the internet noticed Build A Rocket Boy had a subcategory on its job listings page for 'blockchain', which the studio itself later reasoned was for research purposes only. Everywhere is built in Unreal Engine 5 not the blockchain, a statement affirmed at the time, which is again the primary message relayed and underlined before we're shown the game in motion.
