How do you kill the momentum of a fighting franchise being revived on next-generation hardware? You announce that it’s free-to-play and that gamers will be so hosed on micro-transactions that they can only play one character unless they want to buy more characters.

In between talking about how cool it looked, IGN reported that Killer Instinct would be free-to-play and only the character Jago would be available to those who aren’t paying. Access to other characters will be available for an as yet unspecified price. Naturally, this piece of news cooled all the excitement that fans of the original Killer Instinct had.

However, in a live stream, developer Double Helix says that what IGN described above is what they consider demo that will have all the features of the full game but with only one character. They say that characters will be available through micro-transactions and there will be a full version to buy.

Nobody has the full story on this one yet. However, free with only one character is probably the best way to describe it. Free-to-play comes with certain expectations that you get a proper game for free. One character doe not make a proper game.

Source: IGN and /r/Games

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