EA published dodgeball brawler Knockout City will be going free-to-play as it celebrates its first anniversary this spring, but it will be doing so without the backing of EA. Velan Studio will be self-publishing the game going forward.
For the time being the game will continue to be a paid game, priced at £17.99 or playable as part of an EA Play subscription, and so Velan has prepared a special Loyalty Bundle for those who have purchased the game before Year 2 and Season 6 have begun. This will include exclusive cosmetics, XP boosts and 2,000 Holobux for in-game microtransactions.
Writing about the change, Velan said:
From the day we founded our studio, we’ve worked to deliver revolutionary new game experiences to you, our amazing community of players. We couldn’t have introduced Knockout City to the world without the incredible support of EA Originals, but now as we switch to free-to-play, the natural next step is for us to take over publishing responsibilities and work even more closely with our community. We have exciting plans for Knockout City, and bringing publishing in-house will allow us to fully realize our vision for the long-term future of this game. There’s so much to look forward to, because this is just the beginning.
In the meantime, Velan are just about to launch Season 5, which is called Greatest Hits. This will celebrate the first year of Knockout City, bringing back many of the most popular modes and temporary playlists from the first four seasons. This will include Superpowers!, Chain Reaction, Basketbrawl, as well as a few extra surprises.
However, because of the upcoming shift to free-to-play, there will not be a new Brawl Pass to work through, there will also be fewer bundles and new cosmetics in Season 5 and there will be no new map or ball. Expect all of that to come back with a-vengeance in Season 6 and beyond, but Velan will have to be all hands on deck to decouple their game from EA’s Account system, and ensure that the transition is as smooth as possible.
Knockout City is a fun take on the schoolyard game of dodgeball, souping it up to include tons of special attacks and adapting it into a tense and graught multiplayer game that has common ground with the fighting genre. The game is currently still a premium game, but there is a trial version to check out and (as mentioned above) it’s part of EA Play, so you might have access if you subscribe to that or Xbox Game Pass.
It’s out now across PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and PC.
Source: EA
