Love them or loathe them, live service games like Wayfinder and microtransactions go hand-in-hand these days. Ahead of the fantasy RPG game‘s official launch, I asked Airship Syndicate how it plans to navigate the potential minefield while keeping things fair.
During an exclusive playtest with design director Steve Madureira and game director Ryan Ryan Stefanelli, I asked how the devs are looking to implement in-game MTXs in future updates.
“We are definitely taking a lot of cues from how Digital Extremes has done MTX in the past,” Stefanelli tells me. “We’re not talking about all of the specifics yet, but it’s fair-to-play – no gacha.
“It’s based on Warframe because [the microtransactions] it has been so well received by players – if it it’s broke, don’t fix it,” he continues. “We do have some of our own fun twists on the conventional service-based things players would expect which we’ll probably be able to reveal pretty soon.”
“All forms of power will be obtainable through playing the game,” Madureira highlights. “Characters and weapons are both are levelled up, and accessories and creature echoes will be equipable on the spot so that’s the instant gratification loop.”
Stefanelli goes on to describe characters and their weaponry as the “long term play,” and stresses again that “anything power related is obtainable through playing the game.”
It goes without saying that any MTX system is going to draw ire – one look at Diablo Immortal will tell you that. Warframe, however, has been praised for it’s lack of essential purchases for a long time, so that bodes well for the future of Wayfinder.
As I described in my Wayfinder preview, the fantasy game is the perfect choice if you want to play with friends. Who knows, it may even end up on our list of the best multiplayer games upon release – we’ll have to wait and see.