‘Squad’ backtracks on no microtransactions policy with paid emotes

Offworld Industries has announced that paid downloadable content (DLC) is coming to military-sim shooter Squad, despite previously claiming the game would never feature DLC.

In a blog post published to Steam (via PC Gamer), Offworld Industries announced that Squad‘s update 44.27 will introduce emotes to the game. While some will be handed out for free at launch, two separate bundles of emotes will be sold as microtransactions – something the studio previously said it would never do.

“We understand that paid content in gaming can be controversial and that previous leadership at Offworld had stated that paid DLC would never be added to Squad,” acknowledged the studio in the announcement blog.

Offworld Industries explained that while it still intends to release free updates, it needs “a way to continue to fund the development of Squad“. However, in a Q&A toward the end of the announcement, the studio declines to confirm whether new maps or factions will be lauched as paid DLC in the future.

Since emotes were announced, Squad‘s Steam page has been hit with a wave of negative player reviews taking issue with the game’s monetisation plans.

“No to microtransactions and emotes,” reads one, while another complains that Squad is “now getting microtransactions in the form of paid emotes while being a year late from [Offworld’s] roadmap, lacking optimisation and suffering from horrendous FPS drops.”

Squad‘s subreddit has also been filled with critical posts, ranging from a call to boycott emotes to concerns over Offworld Games CEO Vlad Ceraldi’s background in mobile gaming.

Looking ahead, Offworld Industries will be “closely monitoring the popularity of emotes and the interest of the community in them.”

In other gaming news, 2023’s State Of The Game Industry survey has found that an overwhelming majority of developers consider harassment from players a “serious” issue.