After splitting from Gearbox Publishing earlier this year, Relic Hunters Legend developer Rogue Snail is removing all monetization from the full launch and turning it into a premium game. After launching in Steam Early Access in 2023 with plans to turn free-to-play with 1.0, the game will instead now retail at $20, as Rogue Snail doesn’t “want to implement predatory monetization features.” Relic Hunters Legend isn’t the first indie game to make this pivot over the last year, with many developers currently making free-to-play games likely weighing up the decision as well.
If you’ve not heard of Relic Hunters Legend, it’s a twin-stick co-op looter shooter that has a little bit of Enter the Gungeon about it. You bounce around incredibly colorful levels either alone or with friends, as you find and collect loot in a similar vein to Borderlands. Until June of this year, the game was being published by Gearbox Publishing, with Rogue Snail CEO Mark Venturelli saying the mutual split “sucks.”
To combat this sudden need to self-publish, Rogue Snail has decided to make the indie game a premium release when it leaves early access. Relic Hunters Legend was originally going to be free-to-play, but the team cites a need for a fair and sustainable game instead.
“With limited resources, both financial and human, we couldn’t keep the promise we made in our Kickstarter to make Relic Hunters Legend free-to-play,” Rogue Snail says. “We didn’t want to implement predatory monetization features that would make players spend a lot of time, effort, and money to progress in the game. We want to respect your time and money and provide a complete and engaging content experience. We have to focus our limited resources into making the game as fun as possible, and we just can’t spare the effort that goes into monetization.”
“So now we’ll remove all monetization aspects from the game. The 1.0 launch will be a fully premium game, priced at $20 at final launch. There will be no in-game transactions or other in-game purchases—just a one-time purchase.”
Founders who paid to help the game will receive a new currency called Fashion Credits, which can be used to purchase cosmetics. The currency will be rewarded to all players after they complete missions, and can also be dropped by enemies, meaning everyone can buy the cosmetics with it.
The lack of monetization isn’t the only big change coming to Relic Hunters Legend, as the online play requirement is being removed with update 0.11. You can then choose to play solo or with friends, instead of it being online-only. Save slots are also being added, so you can have multiple characters on the go instead of being locked to the one.
With more and more triple-A games basing their income model around battle passes, loot boxes, and premium cosmetic purchases, many indie devs are finding it harder to exist in that space. In the last year, Inkbound promised to remove all monetization while Wayfinder went offline to do the same. Both of these games are self-published, with Wayfinder developer Airship Syndicate originally publishing the game under the same arm of Digital Extremes.
It’s an incredibly difficult time for all sides of the videogame industry, with layoffs hitting developers, publishers closing, and indies struggling to stay afloat amid the sea of new releases. Amid this change, we’re seeing more and more smaller developers pivot away from the free-to-play model, as it’s deemed unsustainable for audiences of their size.
Relic Hunters Legend is still in Steam Early Access and you can find it right here. If you purchase the game during early access expect to pay $14.99 / £12.79, with the price going up to $20 / £15 during the full launch.
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