Titanfall 2 Is Doing Something Awesome For Multiplayer

Electronic Arts and Respawn Entertainment will be launching Titanfall 2 this Friday on October 28th, but ahead of the official release they made an announcement regarding something really awesome for the game's multiplayer.

Over on the official Titanfall 2 blog, it was revealed that Titanfall 2 will not have paid multiplayer DLC or require a season pass.

I know, shocking.

According to the post, there will be no season pass required to obtain all the maps and modes added to the game post-launch. All of Titanfall 2's multiplayer maps and modes will be free. Respawn decided to take this route to separate themselves from how Activision handles Call of Duty, in which new map packs segregate the community due to some players having the DLC and some not.

In the case of Titanfall 2 they've decided to eliminate the headache of dealing with community segregation through map pack DLC, and they've eliminated buyer's regret for gamers who pick up one version or another of the game and realize that they didn't get the right version to access the right kind of multiplayer content. It happens often with Call of Duty and especially Battlefield games where there are so many different map packs and paid post-launch DLC that trying to keep up with the content releases becomes a job all by itself.

They reiterate during the post that even pre-ordering the game only earns you the benefit of playing three days earlier than everyone else, but it will "never cost you extra" when it comes to long-term support.

It's an awesome move by Respawn that's for sure. This is a rare treat for gamers due to today's climate of constantly having to deal with day-one DLC, on-disc DLC, season passes, multiplayer map packs, weapon packs, character packs, skin packs -- there's a gamut of extra monetary expenses to be paid out for a lot of today's games. Oftentimes you'll hear gamers say "Where can I just get the whole game?" because so many games are broken up into pieces that you have to pay for separately.

There's a whole list of other features on the blog post, but one thing I should mention as a caveat to this news is that the post doesn't say anything about microtransactions.

Now I know some of you may have become instantly glum over the news after the word "microtransactions" was mentioned, but it's a reality you may have to deal with. While paid DLC for maps and modes might be off the table, it's not impossible that there might be a cash shop in Titanfall 2 where you can buy outfits, Titan liveries, weapon skins and possibly more. It's one of the things that they did with Gears of War 4 and Halo 5.

They don't mention anything about microtransactions, but it's definitely something to keep in the back of your mind before getting too excited. While online passes were once the bane of the gaming industry and have gone away, season passes quickly replaced them. So while it's awesome that there are no paid DLCs for multiplayer and no season pass, I think it's still best to take the news with optimistic reservation.