Love them or hate them, live service games like Wayfinder and microtransactions go hand in hand these days. Ahead of the fantasy RPG’s official release, I asked Airship Syndicate how they plan to navigate the potential minefield while keeping things fair.
During an exclusive playtest with Design Director Steve Madureira and Game Director Ryan Stefanelli, I asked how the developers plan to implement MTX into the game in future updates.
“We certainly take a lot of inspiration from how Digital Extremes has done MTX in the past,” Stefanelli tells me. “We’re not talking all the details yet, but fair enough, no gacha.
“It’s based on Warframe because (the microtransactions) have been very well received by players: if it’s broken, don’t fix it,” he continues. “We have some of our own fun twists on the conventional service-based elements that players would expect and that we can probably reveal very soon.”
“All forms of power will be obtained through the game,” Madureira explains. “Characters and weapons are leveled, and attachments and creature echoes will be able to be equipped in place, so it’s the instant gratification cycle.”
Stefanelli goes on to describe the characters and their weapons as the “long game” and again stresses that “everything about power can be achieved through gameplay”.
Needless to say, any MTX system will anger – one look at Diablo Immortal will tell. Warframe, however, has long been lauded for its lack of essential purchases, so that bodes well for Wayfinder’s future.
As I described in my Wayfinder preview, the fantasy game is the perfect choice if you want to play with friends. Who knows, it might even end up on our list of the best multiplayer games when it’s released; We will have to wait and see.