Project Spark goes Free-to-Play

Project Spark was the ambitious Xbox One title that was proudly advertised and sung about, but was kind of… forgotten, I guess? It never quite lived up to the lofty potential of a "video game about everything made by everyone," perhaps in part because it came with copious amounts of DLC that meant you had to pay an arm and a leg to give that troll minion an extra arm and/or leg. It wasn’t much fun, and it certainly wasn’t the endless toybox advertised at the advent of the Xbox One’s reign.

Plus it had all that Conker stuff come out of nowhere. What was that even doing there?

Well, in a bid to make the game relevant again--or perhaps a sign they’ve given up on it--Microsoft has announced that the ame will be going completely free-to-play in the game’s next patch. Additionally, the team behind the game will stop producing more content for the game, so what you have now is pretty much what you’ll have forever, as long as the game is still up and running.

Of course, the patch is more than just enabling free-to-play--it also eases many of the artificial limits placed on the level creation process. The terrain limit is doubled, props have been boosted by 500, and there will be 200 more assets added (free, of course) at the same time.

Now if you’re someone who recently spent money on Project Spark, for whatever reason, don’t worry: you’ll get a refund by way of Microsoft Store credit for the amount you spent soon, so long as you purchased it within three months of today--or specifically, the 28th of July.

As for why they’re doing this? Who knows? But anything free is good in my book, so let’s celebrate, I guess.