Doom Eternal Won't Have Any Microtransactions

Buying a full-price video game doesn't always guarantee you'll get everything it has to offer without spending more money. Cosmetics and pay-to-win items are often locked behind microtransactions, asking players to part with more cash if they want to gain a leg up on the competition or simply look different. Fortunately, Doom Eternal isn't involved in such hellish practices.

That's according to the game's creative director, Hugo Martin. The upcoming FPS will include unlockable cosmetics, but you won't have to pay for them--you'll simply have to earn them. "Eternal is a $60 game, not a free-to-play game or a mobile game--we are giving you a complete experience with no store just like you'd expect," Martin said in reply to a fan question on Facebook.

The cosmetics in Doom Eternal will have no impact on how the game plays; they exist just to look cool. "Unlocking skins with XP is part of the experience if you care about that stuff, or you can completely ignore it and it and it will have no impact on your experience at all, and it's all free," Martin continued. "Nothing you can unlock in Eternal with XP has anything to do with player abilities or content that would impact your game in any way."

Doom Eternal never felt like the sort of game to include microtransactions, especially after its predecessor also eschewed the practice, but it's still welcome news when a big triple-A game doesn't ask you to part ways with even more cash. This is especially true when it comes to the game's competitive multiplayer, since you won't find yourself at a disadvantage there if you elect not to purchase additional weapons, skills, and the like.

Doom Eternal is set to launch on March 20, 2020 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC, with the Nintendo Switch version due out later this year.