Upcoming PS3-exclusive shooter Dust 514 was originally unveiled as a free-to-play game, but questions quickly arose over just how free the massively multiplayer game really was after it was revealed that you’d need to buy $10-$20 worth of credits before you could play the game.
CCP’s executive producer Brandon Laurino told Eurogamer:
It was a relatively confusing proposition, and we wanted to make it unambiguously that this is a free-to-play game.
The developer still plans to offer a $10-$20 version with “pre-credit” to spend on microtransactions, as well as letting you buy currency later on in bundles from $10 to $100. But Laurino did stress that no matter how much you spend, it won’t give you an unfair advantage over free players:
It’s very important as we take steps into this topic to unambiguously state that it is not a pay to win game. There is no micro-transaction that you can do that gives you an unfair advantage over someone who hasn’t paid anything. It’s the classic micro-transaction dynamic of, ‘I can pay and get this item,’ or, ‘I can invest my time and get this item.’ But neither of those options will give me an unfair advantage over the other.
Items will include boosters to save time, double skill points, different appearances and different weapons.
Last year, Laurino said that “In terms of scale, depth and volume of content, Dust 514 will easily be the biggest multiplayer FPS on the market – also by virtue of being an MMOFPS, not just an FPS.”
Dust 514 is currently set to release this summer.
