Knockout City drops EA as game goes free-to-play

Knockout City surprised many when it launched last year, offering a fun take of the sport of dodgeball. Despite the game’s position as a live service title, it has struggled to maintain its following with a 24 hour peak of 123 players on Steam. The studio has now announced that they are making big moves to help remedy this.

Making the announcement on EA’s website, the Knockout City team discussed the future of the game amid its impending second year on the market, saying “after Season 5 is over, we’re going to be kicking off Year 2 of Knockout City, and it comes with one huge headline to mix things up: Knockout City is going free-to-play, beginning this spring with Season 6! We’re really excited to bring our game to millions of new players around the world, by removing the price tag entirely.”

For those who purchased the game, Velan Studios announced a “Season 6 Loyalty Bundle” which will come with “exclusive legendary cosmetics, XP boosts, and 2,000 Holobux” alongside saying “we do want to take a moment to thank our day one fans for purchasing Knockout City and supporting us from the very beginning. Your dedication and loyalty motivates us everyday to continue to build our world, and we couldn’t have gotten this far without you. Our first priority will always be our community.”

The final major announcement came in the form of Velan Studios revealing that they will soon be self-publishing Knockout City, freeing the game from previous distributor EA. Explaining the decision, they said:

“From the day we founded our studio, we’ve worked to deliver revolutionary new game experiences to you, our amazing community of players. We couldn’t have introduced Knockout City to the world without the incredible support of EA Originals, but now as we switch to free-to-play, the natural next step is for us to take over publishing responsibilities and work even more closely with our community. We have exciting plans for Knockout City, and bringing publishing in-house will allow us to fully realize our vision for the long-term future of this game. There’s so much to look forward to, because this is just the beginning.”

Knockout City is a fun and colourful multiplayer game with the potential to be the next Splatoon. It will be interesting to see whether going free-to-play ultimately helps or hinders them on that journey.

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KitGuru says: What do you think of Knockout City? Will you give Season 6 a try? How can Velan Studios improve the game? Let us know down below.

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