Season Pass dropped for Star Wars Battlefront II
All content packs will be free, including Force Awakens' Finn and Captain Phasma by Christmas
Electronic Arts has dramatically changed its business model for the upcoming Star Wars Battlefront II.
All DLC will be made available to Battlefront II owners for free, implying there will be no season pass for the upcoming sequel.
There was little detail on how much content will be released after launch, but a video appearance from The Force Awakens' actor John Boyega confirmed that his character Finn and nemesis Captain Phasma will be added to the game as playable Heroes before Christmas.
It was also confirmed the first content pack will feature environments, characters and other elements from this year's Star Wars movie, The Last Jedi - including a glimpse of Rey in what is presumably her Jedi training gear.
The previous Battlefront featured the same type of season pass many of EA's titles - and indeed those of most AAA publishers - have previously offered, allowing users to pay a one-time fee that entitles them to all downloadable content planned beyond the game's launched.
In the case of 2015's Star Wars Battlefront, the season pass was criticised by consumers for being too expensive: roughly $50, which was the same price as the game at launch. While the season pass more than doubled the amount of maps and modes available in Battlefront, many did not believe this was enough value and lamented the lack of content in the vanilla title.
EA opened its E3 2017 press conference promising that this and other aspects of the negative feedback around Star Wars Battlefront, such as the lack of a single-player campaign. The lack of a season pass shows the publisher has taken these comments on board.
It's a bold move given how many publishers monetise their DLC via a season pass, shifting the model towards the games-as-a-service concept that dominates mobile, with additional content regularly added for free in order to retain users.
UPDATE: A fresh gameplay trailer has been released, which you can view below.
EA also mentioned Star Wars Battlefront II will introduce a new system for unlocking content such as weapons and customisations called Battlepoints. While you will be able to earn this in-game, there will almost certainly be microtransactions that will help the publisher offset the lack of revenue generated by a season pass.
