Relic Hunters Legend moves from free-to-play to premium launch to be "more sustainable"
Developer Rogue Snail has announced that Relic Hunters Legend will make the jump from free-to-play to premium.
The announcement followed issues on the publishing side for the studio – it previously parted ways with Gearbox Publishing (now known as Arc following redundancies), with the publisher accepting to return the game's rights to the developer last June.
Now, Rogue Snail announced a new business model for the title so it would be "more sustainable" for its new status as a self-publishing studio.
In addition to dropping free-to-play, Relic Hunters Legend will also no longer be an online-only game and move from a cloud save format to local saves. The 2023 shooter is currently in Early Access and will set consumers back $20 at launch.
Rogue Snail CEO Mark Venturelli commented: "The last couple of years have been extremely rough for everyone in the industry, and for us the challenge was to deliver the game we promised to our community and keep the lights on here at Rogue.
"As a small Brazilian indie studio, just focusing on making the game as good as possible and not having to worry about monetisation and servers was the clear best choice. We still believe that it is possible to make fair, free-to-play games that are sustainable, but this was the solution we found to keep the game alive and vibrant for years to come."
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