Splash Damage announced that it plans to remove all monetization from its free-to-play shooter Dirty Bomb in an update set to go live on Jan. 15. The decision comes after the developer revealed, back in October, that live development and updates for the title would cease.
Initially, the final update was meant to target bug fixing, but the developer wanted “to turn this update into a celebration of Dirty Bomb, allowing players old and new to experience everything, without a cost.”
On Jan. 15, Dirty Bomb’s premium currency, RADs, will be removed entirely, as will bundles that were only purchasable using it. Anyone who still has RADs tied to their account will have them automatically converted to Credits.
To make earning things easier, the rate at which players acquire Credits from matches will be increased significantly. Credit Boosters will also be removed from sale, but remain obtainable via Advancement Crates.
Steam Trading will be extended to also include Loadout and Weapon Cards, while a number of cases and items from the game’s past will be reintroduced.
Dirty Bomb dedicated servers will be kept online in regions with player activity until the end of 2019. Past that point, no decision was taken as of yet.
It’s an unexpected move on Splash Damage’s part, but it will be interesting to see if the decision to remove monetization will breathe life into Dirty Bomb, even with development being halted.
In the meantime, the studio has said that it has “many announced and unannounced titles in production”.
