Hey everyone!
We wanted to give players a heads up about a change to our prices.
For anyone who already owns the game (including just having it in your library), this won't affect you!
We're changing the game from Free to Play, to $2.
The game will have a free demo, that has all the features the game had up until the 2025 March Update.
Anyone who adds Rise and Fall to their library before we change gets to keep their game, completely free.
So basically, no players are losing anything, but going ahead, new players who want to play the full game can pay $2 and own it all.
Why'd We Make This Change?
Lots of reasons.
-We don't have the manpower to offer enough cosmetics to do a true F2P model (at this point in time).
-We started with this model in 2019, back before Battle Passes and F2P fatigue set in.
-We released the game completely free in 2020, not knowing if we'd continue working on it or what our plans would be.
-A small dev team have been working on this for over 5 years now. Up until now, the game has been 100% free, and we've paid for everything out of pocket and used our own free time to continue development.
-We see the awesome reactions players give us when we take the game to showcases, and want to continue to grow the studio slowly, and in a healthy way.
-We feel good about the quality and the amount of content you get today for the price we're asking.
-This allows some money to come back to us, that we can re-invest into the game!
-We may increase the prices as we release more content and feel we're still offering good value for the price we ask for.
-Given our game is local co-op first, we feel this model makes more sense than most free to play games (where the bulk of the game is online and PvP).
-We wanted to start at a price point on the lower end first, then raise if needed, rather than the other way around.
-We still want the game to be affordable, feel like great quality, and a 'no-brainer' purchase.
-Feedback from players at showcases were extremely positive about this being a paid game vs completely free.
And a whole lot more!
Here's a visual breakdown:
As the chart says, the main separator between the demo and the full version will be content.
Maps, modes, character customization, those are all things saved for the full version.
But we want there to be a way for people to try the game out for free, and get a feel for what the game feels like.
The demo version includes everything in the game up until March 2025.
And core features like movement, abilities etc will always also go into the demo version.
The same goes for 2v2 Quickplay, Sandbox Tuning and Balancing, and any Quality of Life updates the game may get.
We've been thinking on this for a few years now, and we feel comfortable we've found a middle ground.
-There's still a free slice of the game players can try for no cost.
-Purchasing the game with what's currently in it is a fair price (aka no charging more for a promise of content, just for what's already there!).
-Game can generate it's own income to help finance finishing the game and keep the studio and developers healthy.
-We're providing enough context on our thought process and our intents, and doing it at a time where we've recently shipped some new great features, that a portion of players get completely free.
-While we've been okay working on this game out of pocket and part time, it will be nice to offset some of that cost with money coming in from the game.
We're always interested in hearing what players think. Don't be afraid to stop by in the Discord and let us know your thoughts on the March Update and the new pricing.
