Free-to-play FPS Blacklight: Retribution coming to the PlayStation 4

Game announcements for the next-gen consoles are coming in hard and fast as the year goes on. Sony recently announced that Zombie Studios’ free-to-play FPS, Blacklight: Retribution would be making its way to the PlayStation 4, and would retain its free-to-play, micro-transaction-fuelled nature. This could make way for more free-to-play games coming to consoles in the future.

Blacklight: Retribution was launched on the PC last year to a good reception; the player count has already crossed the two million mark. The game is set in the near future and allows players to customise their characters and weapons in deeper ways than is usual for the genre.

While the combat is very typical of the modern military shooter, what sets this game apart from the others is the Hyper Reality Visor. The game chooses to forego the typical minimap in favour of the HVR, which is a time-limited wallhack. It lets you see through walls to scout out enemies, but only for a limited period of time.

Blacklight: Retribution is coming to the PS4

This announcement ties in well with Sony’s new philosophy of having games in all price segments available on its next-gen console. Back in February, SCEA boss Jack Tretton told CNBC that PS4 games might be free-to-play , cost as little as $0.99, or be fully priced at $60.

When asked if gamers would be interested in buying full-priced games after the prevalence of free or cheap mobile games, Tretton said, “People are willing to pay if they see the value there and I think there’s more choice than ever before for consumers. We’re going to welcome free-to-play models, games from $0.99 up to those $60 games.”

“If you really see where the heat is for the true gamer, it’s on the console and it’s still that big-form experience that typically runs upwards of $50 million to develop, and we’ll justify that $60 price point and we’ll give people hours and hours of gameplay on a daily basis for months and years to come,” he added.

Sony had also mentioned at the PS4 announcement that it would allow developers greater freedom with its new console, and would let developers explore new business models.

This piece of information is interesting, as Sony didn’t divulge much about what it had in mind for gaming in the future when it unveiled the PlayStation 4. The company did reveal that an AMD-based x86 processor will be powering the console. It will have 8GB of unified high-speed memory and a “massive” hard drive.

The new controller—dubbed the DualShock 4—will have a touch pad, a share button, a headphone jack and a light bar to identify players. The light bar works much like the Move sensor through a 3D camera.