After the microtransaction monstrosity that was Star Wars: Battlefront 2, a lot of gamers are a bit worried whether Anthem will follow the same direction. However, a recent announcement from the developers at the PAX west panel makes it sound like the game is heading away from microtransactions for important parts of the game.
The story was first reported by courtesy of Gamerant who were present at the PAX west panel. According to them, the developers have said that story content will not be locked behind paywalls. That includes story content that is released for the game after the game has been launched.
Bioware had previously already announced that there would be no season pass available for the game, which, for most games, often means that new story DLC will either be completely free or will be sold through DLC expansion packs. This announcement already made it seem that Bioware was not going to lock extra story content behind paywalls but no we know for sure.
The reason as to why they have decided to make additional story content free is so that every player will have access to the base game. They don’t want to give players a different experience based on whether they pay more than other players. Now everyone that has purchased the game can play through the exact same content without having to worry about sinking in more cash.
In previous interviews, Bioware did confirm that microtransactions will be present in the game but now it seems that those will be exclusive to cosmetic options. This is not all that outrageous as there are plenty of games that offer cosmetic options for cash so it’s not that surprising to see the same system implemented in Anthem.
With the removal of content locked behind paywalls, Anthem is yet another game developed by studios from EA that has somewhat ditched loot boxes and microtransaction. We have seen the same thing with Battlefield 5 that has aimed towards removing them as well. Hopefully, this entire trend will die out as fast as it became popular as it made gaming a whole lot worse for most gamers around the world.
