Newcomer Spectre Divide is taking the big guns such as CS2, Valorant, and Call of Duty Black Ops 6 head-on. Built in collaboration with legendary FPS streamer Michael 'shroud' Grzesiek, the new 3v3 competitive multiplayer game infuses the Counter-Strike style of shooter with a unique twist, whereby you control two bodies that you can switch between on the fly. It's also packed with player-led customization – and now, just one day after launch, developer Mountaintop Studios announces that it's dropping prices in response to from players.
The free Steam game, it's launched to a concurrent player high of some 30,000 – strong numbers for a new shooter. Unfortunately, long queue times and matchmaking errors have impacted its first day, and the game currently sits at a 'mixed' Steam review score as a result.
Another common criticism is of Spectre Divide's pricing model. At launch, the game offers a range of cosmetic skins for your character and their weapons, with prices varying from 500 SP (Spectre Points) for a starter pack up to 9,000 SP for the top-of-the-line bundles. For reference, buying 500 SP costs $4.99 / £4.50, while the most expensive package of 11,500 SP comes in at $99.99 / £90.00. Following a negative response to these prices, Mountaintop Games announces that it is dropping the cost of weapon and character skins across the store by 17% – 25%.
"My personal apologies for the situation," game director Lee 'BopNSwap' Horn writes. "We've heard the on pricing and we're going to make some big adjustments." The Cryo Kinesis Masterpiece bundle, previously 9,000 SP, will now cost 7,000 SP. The Medusa Prestige bundle, meanwhile, gets a drop from 4,500 SP down to 3,400 SP. These changes continue across the store, with Masterpiece character skins lowered from 1,800 SP to 1,500 SP and all Prestige character skins dropping from 1,300 SP to 1,000 SP.
Mountaintop adds that anyone who has already bought items prior to the price change will have 30% of the Spectre Points spent on these items added to their , rounded up to the nearest 100. "This should put all of our initial spender ers ahead of where they would have been if they purchased after the pricing changes," Horn writes. "We deeply appreciate your ."
As for its reasoning behind the pricing model, Horn explains, "We are a completely free game. It's important to that 90%+ of players never spend a dime on the game. We love our free players deeply, but we also have to pay for the servers they play on (as well as the massive initial and ongoing cost of development), so the 'freeness' comes at a cost to us.
"Being a new, fully independent studio with limited resources is tricky. We're self-publishing, so every dollar you spend directly funds Spectre and makes the game better every day," Horn continues. "We took a swing that we thought would best set us up to the game. Turns out we swung a bit high, so we are adjusting to be better in line with your . We appreciate everyone's and understanding as we try to iterate to [create] a game you all love. See you all in Breakwater."
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