Tripwire Interactive recently announced that they are making new weapons paid DLC. They will be available for $9.99 in a pack, along with five unique weapon skins. This is being done to help inject financial stimulus back into circulation for Killing Floor 2 and reportedly give the developers more leeway for making new content. The new paid weapon DLC did not go over well with the community, however.

The news originally cam via a post over on the official Tripwire Interactive website on August 9th, where they talked about the new DLC pack, explaining…

“As huge fans of the game ourselves, the thought of scaling back what we could build, create, and offer would have disappointed us just as much as we felt it would have disappointed you. That left us with doing what we know will be more controversial but we feel in the long run will enable us to better service the game.

 

“So what does that mean in practicality? This means starting with our next content update all-new weapons will be sold as DLC along with 5 Unique Weapon Skins custom made for the weapon at a price of $9.99 SRP. We know that this news is going to come with a lot of concerns so we would like to get out in front and address some of the obvious questions.”

The article covers the most pressing questions up front, such as “Will the weapons be pay-to-win?” they answer with an emphatic “No”.

The paid weapons won’t have stats that completely trump the current weapons available in the game.

These changes won’t affect the modding scene, and they have no plans to alter their current plans for maps, modes, bosses, and other content.

They also announced that they will have further plans to reveal regarding how players will be able to acquire weapons outside of purchasing the DLC.

Instantly this became a hot button topic on the forums, as indicated with the first-page results.

As pointed out in some of the threads, people are claiming that this move will kill the Killing Floor 2 community, with Cow Milk proclaiming “RIP TWI and KF2”.

Others asked for Tripwire not to do this, while others boldly said “I told you so”.

The topics surrounding the DLC go on for the next several pages, with a few threads being locked that take things a step further than what’s allowed on the forums.

It reminds me a little bit of the heat that came down around the ears of Overkill Software when they implemented microtransaction loot boxes after they said they weren’t going to go that route. They eventually reneged, but not before it became a huge story around the hardcore gaming circles.

This nascent inclusion of paid weapons for Killing Floor 2 is still in its infancy, and so we don’t know how it will affect the game in the long run, but the game is already starting to suffer the effects of negative reviews in light of the announcement.

Will Tripwire step back and reevaluate or will they stay the course? Time will tell.

For now, they seem intent on following through with the initiative, stating in the post…

“While we recognize as a team this news is bound to come with many strong emotions, we hope you now understand the rationale of this decision for the future of Killing Floor 2 and that you’ll continue to support us and the game. The support and continued commitment to the game from the community is an essential part of its success and what drives us to keep making new awesome gameplay and content for you to enjoy. “

These things rarely ever turn out well for the community in the long run, but we’ll see.

(Thanks for the news tip Richard Pell)