Despite strong free competition in the battle royale genre, the Firestorm mode of Battlefield 5 is not coming as a free-to-play – at least not at the moment. This was stated by a lead developer at a preview event. Players can download Firestorm for free, but only if they own Battlefield 5.
This is the current situation regarding Battle Royale: The genre is booming. Numerous hits have made battle royale a worldwide sensation.
Games like Fortnite or Apex Legends benefit from their free-to-play model with huge player counts and good revenue from the sale of virtual currency for cosmetic items or the battle pass:
- for example, Apex Legends convinced 50 million players to download the game
- Fortnite even reached 250 million registered players
These two titles can be easily downloaded for free by anyone.
What about Firestorm? Battlefield 5 takes a different approach with its proprietary battle royale mode Firestorm.
Like Blackout in Black Ops 4, Firestorm is an independent and technically free mode – but only as part of the paid base game Battlefield 5.
All owners of the game will receive Firestorm as a free update. There is no standalone version, at least not at launch.
The Firestorm mode will be released on March 25 for PS4, Xbox One, and PC.
What about free-to-play plans? Battlefield 5 has sold just under 7.5 million copies so far. By tying Firestorm to the main game, the potential number of players is also limited – especially compared to free-to-play competitors like Apex Legends or Fortnite.
At a Firestorm preview event, John Stanley, a lead designer from Criterion Games, was asked by representatives of VG24/7 about the linkage of Firestorm with a full-price model.
He responded: “At the moment, it is important for Firestorm to be released as part of Battlefield 5.”
He continued: “It is clear that there are numerous connections to Battlefield 5 when you play Firestorm. All experience points earned there also count towards Tides of War and the chapter ranks – and much more. The same applies to weapons and vehicles that you use in Firestorm.
For Firestorm, it is important to be a part of the whole at this time and a way for Battlefield players to experience something completely different in the Battlefield universe. That is where we currently stand.”
When Stanley was asked about further future plans for the Firestorm mode, he shut it down. There was currently nothing to discuss.
But a clear denial looks different – especially with the emphasis that it is “important at the moment” for Firestorm to be part of the overall package of Battlefield 5.
Initially, Firestorm will only be playable in connection with Battlefield 5. But a different model for the future is quite conceivable given his statement.
This is what the developers say about their in-house battle royale competition: With Firestorm, the second high-profile battle royale from EA comes after Apex Legends in a very short time.
Stanley was also asked by VG24/7 about the competition from their own ranks. But what some experts see with concern and confusion does not seem to be a really big issue internally. Accordingly, Stanley’s response was relaxed:
“Apex Legends is great and many people here play it. I play it myself. It is a fantastic game, really well made. There is absolutely enough space for us and Apex to coexist in the same ecosystem, while we also feel very different at the same time.”
He then explicitly emphasized what distinguishes both titles from each other: “Respawn does more hero shooter stuff, we focus more on real combat. We have the typical Battlefield style, we have vehicles.”
What do you think? Does the Firestorm mode have a future if it is only playable as part of the Battlefield 5 package?
