Plague Hunters. Source: a video screenshot

Plague Hunters, the blockchain-based video game, has reportedly been approved by Japanese tech giant Sony and it’s coming to the PlayStation 4, a video game console, soon. This is the first Ethereum blockchain-based game that has gone through Sony’s rigid process of approval.

Plague Hunters, the sequel to its forefather, the successful Plague Road, is developed by Arcade Distillery, a New York-based video game maker. Arcade Distillery is expected to release the game in Q1 2019.

The game teaser:

The game will use the freemium model, so it will be free to play with a chance for players to purchase in-game items. For this, Plague Hunters will have a built-in peer-to-peer (P2P) marketplace powered by the Ethereum blockchain. Players can use the marketplace to exchange their items with each other with having full ownership of the assets. The in-game assets will be non-fungible tokens, which you may know from CryptoKitties.

Despite that the marketplace will be built on the Ethereum blockchain, Plague Hunter will not feature blockchain-based gameplay. Instead, the gameplay was designed for the PS4 and Nintendo Switch, a gaming console, with Arcade Distillery exploring options to release the game for Xbox One and smartphones.

While the gameplay will be very similar to non-blockchain based games, users in Plague Hunter’s ecosystem will have full ownership of every asset they receive, collect, or buy, as well as the scarcity of the in-game items will have provable scarcity.

Basing a video game on the blockchain is a creative way to introduce new people to cryptocurrencies as well as to attract crypto enthusiasts into blockchain gaming.

But Plague Hunter is not the only blockchain-based game that’s to be released. Earlier in November, the Coinbase-backed card game Gods Unchained released its gameplay trailer. The game - which was inspired by popular titles like Magic: the Gathering and Hearthstone - will also feature blockchain-based assets, but the gameplay will happen on the creator's, Fuel Games’ servers.

Gods Unchained is soon going into private beta for stress testing the game, and in three months, the game’s open beta will be released with the full launch coming thereafter.