Highguard, the new free-to-play shooter from developers who previously worked on Titanfall and Apex Legends, is out now–and the game is supported by microtransactions. Developer Wildlight has now shared some context that speaks to the studio’s philosophy about microtransactions and ads.
Jason Torfin, the VP of product and publishing at Wildlight, told PC Gamer that the team built Highguard’s in-game store to be something its own workers might want to use.
“That means cosmetic only, direct purchase only, no FOMO, no pay for power. No pay to win, pay walling, no RNG, no loot boxes,” Torfin said.
Some free-to-play games, and even some paid ones, also include in-game pop-up ads highlighting new content to buy. But Highguard won’t do this.
“We have the most rudimentary message of the day system ever, because we want you to just enter the world and leave you the hell alone until you want to go look at [the store],” Torfin explained. “Some games can make you feel like you’ve walked into something from Minority Report, where you’re just inundated with ads on all sides. We don’t want that.”
Highguard also does not have loot boxes. Lead designer Mohammad Alavi said Wildlight’s artists are “actually excited” to make the microtransaction items “because they’re only making top-tier stuff.”
Game director Chad Grenier also commented on the possibility of Highguard adding licensed skins or other content like many other games have. For now, Grenier said these kinds of skins might not come to Highguard, but if they did, they would need to be the “right fit for the IP and our world.”
“We’re very passionate about our IP and our world, and we have a lot of storytelling we want to do in-game and out-of-game in the future, and so, that makes injecting real world branding into it not necessarily the right fit,” he said.
Highguard only just released, but the developers have already laid out plans for a lot more content to come later this year.
