Delta Force; Hawk Ops’ director Shadow Guo has promised that their upcoming Battlefield like live service title will not have pay to win elements.
In a Q&A covered by MP1st, Shadow Guo shared this statement when asked if the game’s microtransactions meant that it could possibly be pay to win:
“I can promise that this will absolutely not happen – this is a clear standard that we wanted to set for our game. As a dedicated FPS gamer myself, I made sure our team placed great importance on the global player experience and community. The primary content we offer for our players to purchase includes weapon skins, character cosmetics, and battle passes.
First and foremost, our large-scale Havoc Warfare mode has no pay-to-win elements. We also promise that Tekniq Alloy and equipment in Hazard Ops will never be sold – they must be earned through gameplay, participating in events, or trading with other platers in the auction house.
We will not sell these items directly, unlike other games. The highest level of safeboxes (3×3) will also be available for free, by completing missions in our Hazard Ops mode.
Adding to that, a large number of safes in Hazard Ops will be given away during our community events, and more seasonal rewards will be provided through the battle pass. We also promise that all multiplayer content will be free to experience, with no game content locked behind a paywall.”
For those who were not in the know, Havoc Warfare is their large scale team battle mode, while Hazard Ops is an extraction shooter mode.
Shadow Guo sheds light on some interesting choices that Team Jade has made, that do distinguish it from other live service games, though not all players will like those choices.
Of course, we expect that there will be near unanimous applause for Team Jade’s decision not to add pay-to-win elements. While that practice will naturally have a stigma against it, some games, if not the big ones made by AAAs, still see success in it from drawing their players in with the promise of easy entry, and ascendance to the top of their titles’ player communities.
On the other hand, the auction house is a different animal altogether. You may be thinking of the perils of the auction house as we’ve seen before in the likes of World of Warcraft, but in Escape from Tarkov, one of several titles Delta Force; Hawk Ops gets inspiration from, the auction house is its own addictive game mode. You can read this preview of Escape from Tarkov from four years ago to get an idea of what template Team Jade is using here. It remains to be seen if real money will be a factor in their auction house.
Shadow Guo did say they’re doing Battle Passes, which some gamers may be tired of at this point. But at least, it’s familiar enough that gamers will know to make smart decisions to pay for them or not. The same thing applies when it comes to cosmetics for characters and skins; you can play for years without paying a cent. But, if you’re in deep with your team and player community, you’ll voluntarily give your hard earned money, and so will your peers.
So these generally seems like a familiar combination of multiple games, and that will likely be enough to keep players satisfied. Delta Force; Hawk Ops’ appeal has not been originality, but polish and solid execution. For some reason, big AAA companies aren’t able to consistently deliver just that, and that’s opened up space for Team Jade and TiMi Studio Group to come in to the market.
