10,000-hour indie RPG goes free-to-play as devs aren't comfortable making "tens of thousands of dollars from people who don't play the game"
Jul. 18, 2024The puzzle RPG hybrid ditches its $20 price tag
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
Companies usually turn paid games into free-to-play releases to milk more money from their player base, à la Overwatch 2, but puzzling RPG Tactical Nexus has taken the opposite route - it’s going free-to-play because the developers don’t want people spending money.
Team Tactical Nexus, in a recentblog post, announced that the game is actually ditching both its $20 price tag and its demo in favor of going free-to-play, or rather, free-to-keep. “This is due to the fact that the majority of players who bought the main package have only played the game for less than the demo, despite having a demo that allows them to play for dozens of hours,” the team writes before continuing to say they don’t want to “extort tens of thousands of dollars from people who don’t play the game.” Essentially, they can see from backend data that lots of people simply bought the game and didn’t really sink their teeth into it.
The studio has apparently made their intent clear “for several years now” that they’re not up keeping Tactical Nexus “to make a profit” and have never intended on doing so. The team even took things a step further to encourage people to request a Steam refund if they’re eligible, but otherwise, everyone who once bought the base game will receive the upcoming DLC for free. “The need to buy the DLC is only necessary after you have played the game for at least 100 hours…. Please play the game thoroughly before buying the DLC.” A welcome sight in a gaming landscape full of free-to-play games that are engineered to feel more like slot machines.
In the meantime, check out thebest puzzle gamesto play right now.
Sign up to the GamesRadar+ Newsletter
Weekly digests, tales from the communities you love, and more
Kaan freelances for various websites including Rock Paper Shotgun, Eurogamer, and this one, Gamesradar. He particularly enjoys writing about spooky indies, throwback RPGs, and anything that’s vaguely silly. Also has an English Literature and Film Studies degree that he’ll soon forget.
The Witcher 4 may not have Geralt after all: his actor was “slapped by CD Projekt” for accidentally sharing a rumor that he’d be in it, just not as the protagonist
Cyberpunk 2077 is getting a surprise update a year after its once-final update, even after CDPR moved basically every dev to other games: “Sometimes, you want to do it ONE MORE time!”
