Warhammer 40K: Eternal Crusade Explains Their F2P Transition

Warhammer 40,000: Eternal Crusade is making the shift to free to play and today the developers took to their forums to explain what that means for their game. The transition does not mean the entire game will be free. Rather there will be a base version, with slower progression and limitations on what classes can be played. 

Ork only, with only one class available would have messed up class, faction, and matchmaking balance on an epic scale. We now allow all classes except Air Assault; all progression is at 1/3 of the paying player, and you still need to pay either $20 or 20,000 RTC to unlock the full game.

The transition will happen slowly. Sometime over the course of the next three weeks the team will hand out a limited number of trial keys for the free edition of the game. Alienware is a partner, and there will be other partners distributing the keys as well: about 250,000 in all. 

Going free-to-play may help invigorate Eternal Crusade's playerbase and help it reach a wider audience. The initial $50 price tag was a bit steep, and in my own experience Warhammer games over the years have been a mixed bag. But I am looking forward to trying Eternal Crusade, and maybe I'll be persuaded to purchase the full game when it goes free-to-play.