Just announced by developer Arc System Works, BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle will cost $49.99 USD, released digitally and physically throughout North America.
There will be six character packs will bundle three characters a piece, called Cross Tag Character Packs, which will cost $4.99 USD a piece.
Its also been said they'll be offering a $19.99 USD pack that includes all six character packs which is $9.99 USD cheaper than buying them all individually.
For the first two weeks post-launch the first pack will be available for free and includes the characters: Platinum The Trinity, Orie, and Kanji Tatsumi.
The Digital Deluxe version includes the full game and all six character packs, available for $69.99 USD, not too bad and only about a $10 USD difference from the usual $59.99 USD price-tag of most games on launch.
This information has been anticipated since the initial announcement of the game's release and it's DLC-driven roster which has caused some concern to many during these times where Loot Boxes and micro-transactions are rampant and incomplete games are being released more than ever before.
Gematsu reports on a conversation between Destructoid and Producer Toshimichi Mori discussing the original announcement of the DLC- a moment when many fans were excited to hear about a crossover title by the Blazblue producer featuring characters from not only other Arc System Works titles but also Rooster Teeth's RWBY, only to have the impression and sinking feeling that the entire roster would have to be bought separately!
From Gematsu and Destructoid:
“I’m in total agreement,” Mori said. “We’ve been making efforts to make the price accessible for everyone, but we should have communicated it a lot more clearly though so we didn’t have that misunderstanding. Our first mistake was announcing [fighter] Blake as downloadable content before saying he was free. What should have happened is that we should have said Blake is coming as downloadable content for free. But because of so many events late last year and early this year, we wanted to announce things little by little. Unfortunately the first announcement was muddled. We said Blake was downloadable content but we should have announced it all at once. That caused confusion and Arc is very sorry for that.” Mori added, “But at the same time not everyone is going to agree or understand what the developer thinks. From the development side it’s hard to convince everyone, but if we listen to everyone we’ll go bankrupt. So what we can do is try to design downloadable content in a way where more people are understanding about it, which is basically all that we can do. I do agree with some people that downloadable content should be in the game to begin with, but thinking about the business side that isn’t always the case. As creators it’s always fun to continue developing for a certain title, but without the gamer’s support it’s hard. For more people to understand what downloadable content stands for, we can make efforts to clarify in the future how it fits into the game as a whole. Hopefully we’ll create a broader perspective.”
While the total overall price for the content in the form of the Digital Deluxe version mentioned above, the one that includes everything for $69.99 USD isn't too far from the price of a normal launch game. This is an extremely unique approach to launching a fighting game where you have the choice (sort of) in how many characters are in your roster.
It does kind of suck that the only version buy-able to have all the content in it is digitally only, and collectors like myself who enjoy phyiscal copies are stuck paying different prices with more purchases or a lot more to obtain a physical copy and all the characters combined.
So many sides here that seem to have the allusion of a deal or what appears to seem like 'options' for the players- but I find that this just makes things needlessly complicated. There's nothing wrong with having a fighting-genre game for $59.00 USD with a full roster and then releasing a few extra DLC characters whether on launch or afterward. Its a formula that has worked for over a decade now and you know what they say, "If its not broken...." But hey then again, maybe this will work out. Sometimes tests are needed to see what works and what doesn't.
Having a nice fighting game produced by fighting game masters at Arc System Works with a cast of beloved characters all in one game together and potential for future crossover additions might very well be worth every penny.
BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle will be released out for PlayStation 4, PC, and Switch May 31 in Japan and Asia, and June 5 in North America.
I'd love to hear what you think about all of this! Comment below!
Source: Gematsu
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