WildStar has been confirmed to be transitioning into being free-to-play today in a blog post by Carbine Studios on the official website.
WildStar is an MMORPG developed by Carbine Studios for Windows PC; many former World of Warcraft developers now work for the company. The game launched in June 2014 under the traditional MMO monthly subscription model.
Since it was released the game had a variety of updates for content but despite this WildStar will now be transitioning to a free-to-play model.
Carbine Studios confirmed that the full game will be free and players are not required to pay money for any major aspects of the game however there will be optional in-game purchases to be made in terms of player services, convenience options and cosmetic items. So the game is completely free-to-play unless you’re one of those players who likes to collect cosmetic items.
Carbine Studios has explained what will happen to users who have an active subscription at the time the games for free-to-play later this year. Those users will have their accounts automatically transferred to the Signature service which will continue until their ‘subscription’ has ended.
Players with a recurring payment will continue to pay for the Signature service unless they stop it and players with non-recurring payments will need to apply with another payment to their account to continue to use the Signature service.
Those users who were continuous subscribers from the launch of WildStar to free-to-play will be getting some exclusive items as a thank you from Carbine Studios. Items will include a mount, a companion pet and a music track. If you missed the launch and are a current subscriber you can still get some in-game goodies by keeping up with your subscription through the games transition to free-to-play.
WildStar will be free-to-play some time in the fall with no word on the date yet, it’s still nice to have them confirm this after it’s uncertain first year.
Be sure to check out the full blog post here for full details on what will happen to current accounts.