Velan Studios is getting rid of Electronic Arts: they will self-publish Knockout City, which will also switch to a free-to-play business model.

Velan Studios has announced that Knockout City will switch to a free-to-play model for Season 6 starting on June 1. It will be preceded by the fifth season (Greatest Hits) beginning on March 1, in which the developers will bring back the best moments of the first year of the game (Superpowers, Chain Reaction, Basketbrawl) and have promised some surprises.

There will also be a change in publisher: Knockout City was originally released under Electronic Arts’ EA Originals branch, but Velan says self-publishing is the next natural step for them, as it will allow them to execute the right vision for their game to sustain it in the long term. Part of this is the use of the F2P model. The studio says, “We have a bunch of behind-the-scenes work to do to get ready for going free-to-play, and our team is all-hands-on-deck working on that. As a result, Season 5 will have a little less content than some of our previous seasons. There won’t be a new Brawl Pass for Season 5, we’ll have fewer bundles and new cosmetics for the season, and there’s no new map or new ball.

However, this shift in content is only temporary. We’ll have a new Brawl Pass, more cosmetics, and plenty of new features coming in Season 6, with more new maps and balls coming in future seasons (sneak peek: There’ll be a new Special Ball coming in Season 6, but you’ll have to wait until we’re closer for details!). For now, you will still need an EA Account to play, and your data will be processed in-line with EA’s Privacy & Cookie Policy.”

Knockout City is currently available for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, PC (Steam, Origin), PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch. So it’s coming soon for free, which isn’t a bad move as the studio doesn’t sound desperate. We’ve seen multiplayer-oriented games go F2P before as a last resort (Evolve… remember that?), but the tone is different here.

Source: Gematsu