Defiance going free to play in June. A decision that’s long overdue.

We’re surprised it’s taken this long for TRION to move Defiance over to free to play. We said this would happen right after launch.

Defiance is really not very good and the whole TV show cross media idea was full of potential but failed miserably. The  TV show, despite being granted a second series on Sy-Fy, is also pretty poor which hasn’t exactly helped the game.

So what does that mean for subscribers who shelled out for the game at launch and have been paying monthly?

Players who purchase a new box or digital copy of Defiance are granted the following bonuses:

• A grant of 1,000 Arkforge, a currency redeemable for resetting weapon mastery, upgrading your weapon’s power rating, or even bumping an uncommon weapon to epic rarity.
• 4 Character Slots, 5 Loadouts, up to 75 Ark Keycodes, and a minimum 70 Inventory Slots.
• They will also enjoy thirty days of Paradise Patron status when Defiance begins its free-to-play service.

Paradise Patrons are granted:

• Boosts to skill, XP, scrip, salvage, and reputation gain rates that stack with the matching boosts available in the store.
• 10% store-wide discount – boosts, costumes, lock boxes, all of it!
• A grab bag of one-hour boosts or Arkforge from Daily and Weekly Ark Hunter Bonus Lock Boxes. (Playing on console? Be sure to link your account to get this bonus!)

New content will of course be added to the game thanks to the second season of the show which kicks off on 19 June, but it’s going to have to bloody amazing to pull players back.

“You’ll be glad to hear that all Defiance owners (existing badland adventurers such as yourselves) will enjoy more of everything than the greenhorns emerging from dropships and taking their first shaky footsteps in the Bay Area. You’ll continue to enjoy more character slots, loadouts, ark keycode capacity, and inventory slots than free-to-play accounts. For those looking to expand what they already have, we’ll even be offering increases to these limits.”

Now that the business model has changed, will it make this a better game? I doubt that very much. Content updates have been poor since launch and the game is still not fun to play. Back in September they said:

“We have the opportunity to make Defiance into the gameplay beast that it always promised to be. Shooting, driving, and chasing down arkfalls are each entertaining as hell, and that’s a great foundation to build upon. Defiance has incredible potential, and it is going to reach that potential come hell or waters that are high”

Seven months on and that “incredible potential” has not been realised.

Why TRION keep flogging this dead horse is beyond me. Probably because they have some contract in place with the SyFy channel and they have to keep it running. Free to play or not, there are much, much better MMOs out there so my advice is don’t be tempted now it’s free to play and find something else.

This Friday TRION will be holding a live stream to explain how this is all going to work and that kicks off at 5PM ET. The game will go free to play in June on the PC if you really must try it out.

Source: TRION