It was a big day for Jelly Bean Battle Royale fall guys. Mediatonic announced the pandemic-era hit would be free to play and would land on Xbox and Switch next month start its seasonal calendar over again. It works effectively rocket league route, but three years earlier than planned.
Here is an overview of Mediatonic’s announcements during Monday’s live stream:
- fall guys goes free-to-play on June 21st
- It will be available for Switch, Xbox and Epic Games Store on the same day
- A new PS5 version will feature “faster load times and other performance improvements”.
- There will be a new 100 level season pass
- Anyone who has already purchased the game will receive the Legacy Pack, which includes Regal, Dwarf, Veggie Dog, and other cosmetics.
- There will be full cross-platform play and cross-platform progression on all platforms
- The game will leave Steam
This last part is disappointing but not surprising for Steam users now that Epic Games has acquired Mediatonic in March 2021. While current owners can continue to play Steam and receive future updates, the studio confirmed that new players on PC will only be able to access the game through the Epic Games Store. If that sounds familiar, that’s because it’s the exact same trajectory rocket league followed.
Psyonix’s car soccer game was released for free on PS4 via PlayStation Plus in 2015. In the years that followed, it came to Xbox and Switch. Epic Games acquired it and the studio in 2019. A year later rocket league went free-to-play and abandoned Steam. Even the seasonal calendar was restarted for the occasion.
That Fourteen days-ification of rocket league also brought with it a big resurgence of active players, and it seems that accounts for a large part of the current push fall guys. The former saw its concurrent Steam players twice as strong 140,000 when it became free-to-play, although it was no longer for sale on that platform. While Fall Guys 2020 made a big summer debut in the early days of the global pandemic, interest and players have dwindled with each successive season. at least on Steam.
To capitalize on the coming influx of new players, fall guys‘ next season is called Free For All and features new levels, costumes and challenges. There will also be a new premium currency called Showbucks, as no free-to-play transformation is complete without an additional layer of microtransactions.
