Insurgency Sandstorm will be in beta again soon, but one of the big question marks ahead of the game's full release is the team's plans for the game's DLC. Will there be microtransactions, loot boxes, or paid expansions packs?
We spoke with New World Interactive and they confirmed that all significant Insurgency Sandstorm DLC will be free as they don't wish to "split up our community or create unfair gameplay advantages. There will also be no paid DLC or microtransactions at launch, not even the ability to buy the in-game credits - although paid cosmetic DLC may come later.
The main worry came from the game's 'appearance credits', which the player only receives when they level up and can be used to buy cosmetic items. New World says that these credits cannot be paid for in real money, at least at launch, although after release they are considering making these credits available for purchase - but only for cosmetic items.
"If a player doesn't want to spend the time to unlock a cool pair of gloves, a fancy tactical helmet, or whatever, they would have this secondary shortcut option," the developers told us. "Since these items are cosmetic, we feel this is a nice way for players to support us and more quickly get the character they want without breaking gameplay balance."
They also outlined their plans for post-launch content, which includes "new maps, new weapons, new cosmetics, improvements to competitive play, and other new content post-release." The team also confirm that all of this new content will be free. "We are exploring a lot of options and will be excited to share more stuff in the future. This content will be offered for free in regular updates to the game so as to not split up our community or create unfair gameplay advantages.
Insurgency Sandstorm will release on September 18th. You can check out our hands-on impressions of the game's various modes right here.
