'BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle' News: Early Adopters Get First DLC Pack Free

By Kevin Reyes, Christian Post Contributor Monday, February 19, 2018

In light of recent controversy surrounding the game's roster and pricing system, Arc System Works has announced that anyone who purchases "BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle" within the game's first two weeks will receive the first batch of downloadable characters for free.

Officially announced on the company's Twitter page, the first character pack will include Kanji from "Persona 4: Arena," Orie from "Under Night In-Birth," and Platinum the Trinity from the "BlazBlue" franchise itself and will be given away for free to early adopters of Arc System Works' upcoming cross-over fighter.

This decision to reward anyone who purchases the game early seems to stem from the recent issues and controversy regarding the game's decision to lock out half of the game's roster behind paid downloadable content (DLC). 20 characters are usually a pretty good base for a fighting game, and doubling that number post-release is not necessarily a bad thing. However, Arc System Works received a lot of criticism by how unbalanced its launch roster was in terms of series representation.

Despite being a crossover between four franchises, "BlazBlue" had the most number of characters at the start with 10. "Persona 4: Arena" and "Under Night In-Birth" both only had four and, perhaps the worst offender, "RWBY" only had two — they could not even include all of Team RWBY as playable characters at launch.

They have tried to salvage the situation. Both Blake Belladonna and Yang Xiao Long, the remaining two members of Team RWBY, have been made free DLC, so fans will be able to unite Team RWBY post-launch at no additional cost, but it still leaves a bit of a bitter taste.

It has also been announced that the game will launch at a cheaper price than most retail titles. Instead of the typical $60 price tag, "BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle" will cost $50, while all of the DLC characters will cost $20 in total, which again helps assuage the issues surrounding the title.

"BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle" will launch on June 5 for North America and will be playable on the PlayStation 4, PC, and Switch platforms.