City of Heroes is now free-to-play

By Fred Dutton Published 27 September, 2011

Plus, big Chapter 21 update detailed.

NCsoft MMO City of Heroes is now free-to-play.

The publisher flipped the switch today following the announcement in June that its superhero title would soon be jumping on the F2P bandwagon.

Re-branded City of Heroes Freedom, you'll now be able to reach lv. 50, access over 1000 missions, explore 45 different zones and choose from eight separate character archetypes without opening your wallet.

For full details of what exactly you will have to pay for check out the handy comparison chart that NCsoft has published on the game's official site.

To celebrate the relaunch, a big new patch has also gone live. Here's what the Chapter 21: Convergence update adds:

  • New Zone: First Ward, the training and testing grounds for some of Praetoria's most elite forces and sinister weapons, is where players will encounter all new threats, including the massive zone-wide event, the Seed of Hamidon.
  • New Epic Challenges: The Underground Incarnate Trial takes place deep below the streets of Praetoria, in the secret lair of the Devouring Earth. Those strong enough to break through their stronghold may reach the devastating Avatar of Hamidon for a final showdown of epic proportions. Up to 28 players can team up to fight new menaces and unlock great rewards.
  • New Power Sets and Costumes: Time Manipulation (free for VIP Players), Beam Rifle and Street Justice represent just the beginning of new powers coming to players with City of Heroes Freedom, while the Barbarian and the Circle of Thorns Costume Sets, as well as the IDF and Defense Costume Sets (free for VIP Players) add even more options to the millions of customisation options at a players' fingertips.
  • New Starting Experience: Puts new players right in the middle of the action, giving them access to all archetypes with no alignment restriction. During the new starting experience, players will have the opportunity to determine whether they ally with the forces of good, or harness the powers of evil.
  • New Missions: The debut of monthly Signature Story Arcs (free for VIP Players), enables players to play a key role in the main storyline as they fight alongside iconic heroes and villains and discover which of Paragon City's premier heroes will die!
  • New Rewards: The Paragon Rewards program is our way to thank players for investing in City of Heroes and provides new and unique in-game rewards designed around each player's unique tastes and play style.
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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 8 months ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • bemaniac #1 8 months ago

    They seem to have kept the game servers for existing subsribers nicely free of noobs and freebie players as an option. I don't play the game but massive thumbs up because communities usually die when games go f2p

  • Dizzy #2 8 months ago

    I have a high level controller... guess what? Not free... please pay 15 euro to unlock your character.

    Bye!

  • Rack #3 8 months ago

    Same here, only worse still I have a Gravity Controller. They were nerfed so hard it wasn't worth taking any of their controller abilites so he was effectively a Rad Defender at 80% efficacy. If he was an actual Rad Defender I could still use him, but because he's a nerfed one I have to pay.

  • TruSmiles #4 8 months ago

    Nice, gonna download this later. I still have my old game discs for City of Heroes and Villains from years and years ago!

  • jonfon #5 8 months ago

    @Dizzy : Do you really expect all of the features across the board to be free to you? It's a Freemium model, so there are things stuck behind a paywall.

    I was slightly annoyed Controllers and Masterminds were the two ATs which were being treated that way (cos they're my two favourite ATs), but if you're a returning long-term player (if you played for 3 years or more) they're also unlocked automatically for you (as is the case for my expired EU account, they didn't have to pay a penny to play my old main controller)

    15 quid is a one-off payment pretty much equal to a months subscription. Or you can pick any of the 8 basic ATs (any of which you can play either side, so a Brutes or Corruptor on the Hero side or a Defender or Tank redside) and play them absolutely free.

    With the influx of new players now is an excellent time to start afresh anyway, CoH has always been much more fun when you're teamed up.

  • Dizzy #6 8 months ago

    "@Dizzy : Do you really expect all of the features across the board to be free to you? It's a Freemium model, so there are things stuck behind a paywall. "

    TBH I paid for the game... my character was "in the box". So yeah... I am not going to play/pay.

    I probably would have spend money down the line on micro transaction stuff like costumes... but not now. If I have to pay to see how the game is now I can't be bothered.

  • Rack #7 8 months ago

    As a package I'm honestly impressed by how much is free, but neither paying 2 months worth of subscription to unlock my character or grinding up to the level the game gets interesting appeal. I appreciate them unlocking at 3 years but I only subscribed for 2 and a bit so this change unfortunately means nothing to me.

  • all_hell #8 8 months ago

    CoH isn't giving away enough for free to please everyone I suppose.
    Why that's upsetting I am not sure.

  • Rajani_Isa #9 8 months ago

    @Dizzy - if you don't like pay/play, why'd you ever pick up City of Heroes in the first place? And in the Dev's words, it's not a "Free-to-Play" game, as the full game isn't free. If you want to check out the game, however, you can still make a new character. If you've been gone long making a new character is a good idea anyway.

    @Rack, If you take a look in game, now check your Paragon Rewards page for how many tokens total you have. To get the free unlock of the MM and Controller ATs, you just need 13 Tokens. Now, how they did the Veteran rewards conversion meant that, at Freedom Launch, you needed 33 months of rewards, nearly 3 years, but in freedom, you gain an additional token every month subbed AND for every 15 dollars of points bought (and I think 1 bonus one for buying any, from what I've seen on my own account). At two years, you will start with 10 tokens at least, needing just three more (in fact, I think you'd have 11, 12 if you had one or more "box codes" on your account)

    It's worth poping on and checking it out. Note you do need to have the current NCSoft Laucher - the old CoH launcher doesn't work anymore.

  • Ultraman1966 #10 8 months ago

    Champions Online has already been F2P for quite a while... does anyone still play this?

  • Rack #11 8 months ago

    I'll give that a go Rajani, I have City of Heroes and City of Villains codes, so with some luck buying $15 will push me from 11/12 to 13/14. It's about the same as resubbing for a month but if the game's improved enough then it will be worth coming back to.