City of Heroes goes free-to-play

By Fred Dutton Published 21 June, 2011

Name change, big update also coming.

Superhero MMO City of Heroes is jumping on the free-to-play bandwagon later this year, publisher NCSoft has announced.

A standard monthly subscription system – now called VIP Status – will remain for those who want it, with a few added extras such as free Signature Story Arcs and 400 complimentary Paragon Points per month to be spent in the new Paragon Market.

Those opting to go down the freemium route will still be able to max out their character at level 50, though there are a few restrictions.

They'll be restricted from certain systems, such as alignment change, Day Jobs and Mission Architect, and won't receive any live support unless they upgrade to VIP player status.

Unlike VIPs, free players can only have two characters per account.

"Freedom is about getting more content into the hands of our players, whether they are subscribing or playing for free," explained executive producer Brian Clayton.

"To do this, we've looked at City of Heroes from the ground up and focused on three ways to enhance the experience by giving our players more choices, greater rewards and the best content we've ever produced. And for the first time ever, players can choose to enjoy more than seven years of content for free."

To mark the occasion, the game is also getting a new name – City of Heroes Freedom – and a new update.

Issue 21: Convergence adds in a new Power Set, two costume sets, the Underground Incarnate Trial, and the new First Ward co-op zone.

Head over to the game's official site for an FAQ on exactly how the change-over will work.

The Paragon-developed MMO first launched back in 2004. Eurogamer's City of Heroes review saw the game securing a 7/10.

Picture of Fred.

About Fred Dutton

Fred Dutton is Eurogamer's US news editor, based in Washington DC.

Read more articles from Fred by visiting the Fred Dutton archive page.

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Comments (11) Latest comment 11 months ago

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  • SEVQA #1 11 months ago

    Now if only DC Universe would follow suite!

  • riceNpea #2 11 months ago

    DC? i still wouldn't play it if it was free. it's a freeze-fest. i had it at launch and it nearly killed my PS3

  • Hamalot97 #3 11 months ago

    I bet Cryptic are Laughing their Heads off at This...

  • Shikasama #4 11 months ago

    Hamalot - I don't see why. CoH/V has been going for 7 years which is impressive in itself, and the developer that released the utter abortion that was Champions Online (after Marvel actually withdrew their license from them) shouldn't be finding anything funny.

  • FortysixterUK #5 11 months ago

    Doesn't seem like such a good deal...only two character slots and totally limited in what you can do?
    Another one to miss.

  • dsmx #6 11 months ago

    Does it support windows 7 properly yet?

  • jonfon #7 11 months ago

    @dsmx, oddly enough yes. It now uses the NCSoft launcher which, very surprisingly, is actually pretty good, works with Windows 7 and patches and updates the game much, much faster than the old built-in launcher they had.

    The 2 slots is the bare minimum, you can buy more in the store (yes, there's a store on the way. Joy :( )

    I doubt Cryptic are laughing at this that much. The game that a lot of their players "cut their teeth on" is now letting them come back as Premium subscribers to try out at least 2 of their old characters for free.

  • BraveArse #8 11 months ago

    7 years ... mental. I was on the beta and played it for a lot of the first 2 or 3 years, and have come back every so often since. I'd imagine it would feel pretty clunky nowadays though.
    Edited by BraveArse at 22/06/11 @ 08:07

  • TruSmiles #9 11 months ago

    I played this game when Villains first came out and loved it, but my PC couldn't really handle it at the time, causing me to leave it. Haven't touched it since. Now it's going free though, I really want to try it again.

  • Sunyavadin #10 11 months ago

    Oooh exactly the same system Champions took up for its F2P mode. Interesting to see how they stack up against each other now.

  • maktah #11 11 months ago

    @bravearse: Surprisingly it doesn't feel clunky at all. They recently updated the graphics engine which makes the game look absolutely brilliant. The animations are smooth, ragdoll effects nice and the action looks amazing.
    I've been playing CoH for over 3 years, and only stopped when the game started crashing my previous PC. But now I got a new PC, and I'm going to pick up the game again after the summer.

    Hybrid F2P was not unexpected. It actually came later than I thought it would have.