Quake Champions creative director Tim Willits announced that the upcoming arena shooter will be free to play upon its release. However, the game will come with a for-pay option.
In an interview with Polygon, Willits explained the game’s business model, stating that “players who want to can play a single character, a Champion named Ranger, for free.” Alternatively, there is a package (The Champion Pack) that will grant those who by it unlimited access to every class for a yet to be disclosed price.
It is still possible to use the other classes if you don’t buy the game, but to do so players will have to use the in-game currency called favor. The currency is earned by playing matches and earning experience and will grant free to play users access to the characters, but only for a finite period of time.
“I don’t want to use the word rent,” Willits said. “You do spend favor to have access to them for a limited amount of time, yes. But you don’t spend any real money on it.”
Free to play games have been known – especially on mobile devices – for providing the game for free, but giving gamers the option of either waiting an inordinate amount of time waiting to continue to play or giving them the option to spend real money to begin playing again. The other issue free to play games tend to dig up is the pay to win model, as players can simply buy better guns and characters instead of earning them.
But the business model that the Quake Champions team has set up seems to support the free to play model as a way of giving players a taste before they commit to buying the game. Once they own it, they don’t have to ever worry about using favor again for the purpose of using the other classes.
Regardless of whether players are using the free to play model or the full game, players will share the same maps and compete in the same brackets. For more information, be sure to stay tuned for more Quake Champions updates, as well as all of your Nerdy News!
