This week, Lawbreakers developer Boss Key Productions announced its latest project, a battle royale game called Radical Heights. Boss Key's answer to the likes of Fortnite Battle Royale and PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, the game is being pitched as a free-to-play BR title that serves up a bold, bright, and bicycle-based 80s-inspired look. The game's tagline also includes the phrase "cash is king," but some players have raised pay-to-win concerns, as they are worried Boss Key is taking its promotional messaging a little too seriously.

The pay-to-win concerns surrounding Radical Heights emerged after Boss Key detailed the game's founder's packs. Founder's packs are fairly customary for free to play games and allow committed fans to pay extra for some in-game bonuses. In Radical Heights' case, these bonuses initially included $10,000 of in-game cash, which can be spent on weapons, gadgets, and armor of different rarities. Players can also bank it to their account for use in other matches.

But many were concerned that this bonus would give players too much of a leg up over their opponents. Boss Key addressed this, removing the flat $10,000 bonus to offer a 10% bonus to the cash that players bank at the end of the match instead. However, this too raised pay-to-win concerns among Radical Heights fans, leading Boss Key to remove that, saying, "We don't want anything that resembles pay-to-win in the game." As a replacement, founder's pack owners will get 1,250 RAD gems, which are used to purchase cosmetics.

Over the last six months, there has been a huge amount of controversy surrounding video game monetization and whether a multiplayer game is pay-to-win. Star Wars Battlefront 2's loot boxes seemed to kick things off by including gameplay-affecting items in the game's loot boxes, essentially giving those with more disposable income an unfair advantage. Despite removing the paid loot boxes following the backlash, the controversy had a significant, negative impact on sales of the game.

Although there is a steadily growing conversation about how cosmetic items can be pay-to-win, specifically regarding the battle royale game PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, many gamers have said that it is important to them that a game is not pay-to-win. Radical Heights is an important game for Boss Key as it comes off of the failure of fast-paced shooter Lawbreakers and arguably, the developer cannot afford to alienate anyone due to pay to win mechanics.

Radical Heights will be available on PC via Steam later today.

Source: Radical Heights, Twitter