City of Heroes Goes Free to Play with Freedom

Paragon Studios, as the developer, and NCsoft, as the publisher, have announced that they are working to transition their superhero powered MMO City of Heroes and its expansion City of Villains to the free to play and micro transaction model starting later this year.

The two companies are saying that those who do not want to play can experience both Hero and Villain zones of their choosing and can get their character to level 50, enjoying most of the content that City of Heroes has to offer.

Those who are already paying a subscription to the MMO and those who have experienced free content and are interested in seeing more will be asked to pay a monthly fee but will get access to VIP only content, services and in game rewards.

Players that pay are able to choose from new powers and costume sets and will receive extra consumables, choosing which rewards they are interested in for each month.

Paying customers will also get access to story arcs that will be launched monthly and will be able to enjoy the new missions and the new options included in the free expansion for City of Heroes.

Brian Clayton, who is the executive producer at Paragon Studios, stated, “Freedom is about getting more content into the hands of our players, whether they are subscribing or playing for free.”

He added, “To do this, we’ve looked at City of Heroes from the ground up and focused on three ways to enhance the experience by giving our players more choices, greater rewards and the best content we've ever produced. And for the first time ever, players can choose to enjoy more than seven years of content for free.”

At the moment City of Heroes offers more than 1,600 missions from the developers and 375,000 made by the community.

The transition to free to play will allow the MMO to grow its player base and will end up increasing delivery for the publisher and developer.