Freemium Sequel to Monday Night Combat Arriving In ‘Next Few Months’

With its upcoming sequel to its Defense of the Ancients-inspired shooter Monday Night Combat, Uber Entertainment is embracing another hallmark of the hero arena genre: a free-to-play business model.

Instead of simply throwing players into a typical deathmatch scenario, MNC asks two teams to defend their bases against an onslaught of enemy robots by using turrets, special abilities, and class-based teamwork. The sequel, Super Monday Night Combat, currently scheduled for release by early next year, will update the original to focus more heavily on strategy.  Players will be less lethal to one another, turrets and bots will be stronger. But the main focus is reshaping the game as more of a service than a product.

“"We're big believers in allowing people to play the game for free if they want to," creative director John Comes told Kotaku. “We are allowing the player to play the game and we are not holding them back, but if they want to do things faster or more, that's how we'll make our money."

Similar to other free-to-play hero arena games like League of Legends, players will have access to a rotating selection of characters for free but can pay to permanently unlock their favorite characters or buy new skins and taunts.

Despite strong initial sales on the Xbox 360, Monday Night Combat carved out a niche for itself on PC thanks to rapid updates from the development team, and Uber hopes to continue that with Super Monday Night Combat and its nimble free-to-play structure.

Source: Kotaku