In an extensive interview/gameplay preview, the Godfall development team revealed new information about how the game’s loot mechanics and other RPG elements will work.
Let’s start with some good news. The Godfall team has confirmed that Godfall will not depend on microtransactions. Specifically, Godfall technical producer Richard Heyne says that they don’t consider the upcoming game to be “a service” and that while there are “no microtransactions in Godfall,” Counterplay Games is planning on supporting continuing to support Godfall in order to offer plenty of end game content for players to enjoy.
That certainly comes as good news. The nature of “looter” titles has long made it tempting for developers to try to take advantage of microtransactions as a way for players to circumvent the random nature of drops and pay for the items they want. It’s encouraging to hear that will seemingly not be the case here.
Speaking of loot, the team reiterates that loot in the game will feature of mix of high-powered random drops as well as structured drops. In other words, it’s entirely possible to find a random high-level drop off an equally random enemy. At the same time, defeating high-level enemies will reward you with pre-determined drops that are typically high-powered. The team has indicated that it’s their desire to preserve that thrill of potentially getting a powerful new item after almost any encounter without demanding that you pursue such drops in order to access worthwhile equipment.
At the same time, Godfall will allow you to use resources to upgrade existing weapons. The idea here is that if you have a lower-level weapon that you’re fond of, you won’t necessarily have to immediately replace it just because something slightly better comes along.
The entire interview offers fascinating new insight into some of the long-term plans for Godfall, and we highly recommend checking it out if you want a much better idea of what this game is (and isn’t) all about:
Still, the idea that Godfall will not be a game-as-a-service title remains arguably the most interesting takeaway from this interview. While the definition of such titles remains somewhat fluid, the general takeaway here is that it doesn’t seem like the Godfall team is interested in overstuffing the game with purchase opportunities or perhaps even battle pass subscription plans.
That being said, we’ll be interested to see what Godfall‘s post-game DLC options look like as such purchase opportunists feel almost inevitable at this point.