After certain players noticed the existence of “Phoenix Credits” in The Division beta, many fans began to worry that this was indicative of the dreaded microtransaction. Thankfully, Ubisoft swiftly stepped in to clear things up.
It seems that these credits definitely won’t be available to buy with real money, and can only be earned through actually playing the game. This was confirmed in a Tweet by community manager Natchai Stappers.
He continued by saying that Ubisoft will share more details of the Phoenix Credits at a later date. The world can breathe a sigh of relief for now. Momentarily we were united in our hatred of the microtransaction. After all – if you pay to win, have you ever truly won?
Only last month, creative director Magnus Jansen confirmed that considered plans for shortcut microtransactions had been binned. Two of Ubisoft’s recent big releases – Rainbow Six Siege and Assassin’s Creed Syndicate – both featured microtransactions, so The Division marks something of a change of pace for the company.
Having said that, The Division will offer multiple expansion packs in the form of paid post-launch content. You can try and run or fight it, but you’ll never truly be done giving money to Ubisoft.
Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.