Battle royale title 'Darwin Project' will soon be free on Xbox

Scavengers Studio made its battle royale brawler Darwin Project free-to-play for PC in April, leaving Xbox players wondering if they have no choice but to pay $15 for it. Turns out they won't have to pay a cent either: starting on July 4th, 2018, the post-apocalyptic survival game will also be free-to-play for the Xbox One. While the developers didn't expound on their reasoning behind the move, Creative Director Simon Darveau admitted when they made the game free for PC that they needed to entice new players. Current members had been reporting "longer queue times and difficulty finding matches in lesser populated servers," and they were at risk of losing them, as well.

Darwin Project generated a lot of buzz at E3 2017, and we once described it as "Katniss Everdeen running around Pochinki Hill, chopping down trees like Wilson the Gentleman Scientist." Despite the great reception before it even launched, it now needs to drum up interest in order to compete with more popular titles like Fortnite.

To make it up to those who already paid for the game, the studio will give them a Founder's Pack on July 3rd. They can also contact Xbox support for a refund if they'd rather get their money back. In addition to making the game free, Scavenger Studio also improved its performance, added the friend system for Xbox, and is now working to fine-tune its combat, player powers and tile system.