Nowadays, it seems like every game has some sort of “season pass.” Rocket League, League of Legends, really the vast majority of games that you can think of feature some version of these things.
It works simple enough. The more you play, the more experience you earn towards the pass. With each milestone as you level up the pass, you unlock some goodies. More often than not, these passes are split into two – a paid and a free. The paid pass includes exclusive skins, emotes, new customizable options, and usually some in-game utility items, whereas the free pass might include a skin or two and the virtual equivalent of a confetti gun or something.
Love them or hate them, they’re the newest redesign of the microtransactions we seem to all love to complain about (yours truly so very included in that generalization, of course). Riot has decided to bring a new season pass to their auto-battler game mode, Teamfight Tactics (TFT).
The upcoming set, Galaxies, will shake up gameplay considerably with new themes, champions, and the like. To help unlock new customizables towards that end, Riot has created the Galaxies Pass.
"We wanted to let you know that your voices (and memes) came through loud and clear. After internal discussion and consideration, we are making the decision to move back to splash art across Teamfight Tactics (TFT)."
–@Xhanghai (UX Lead TFT PC)https://t.co/lXVnVNfHTa— Teamfight Tactics (@TFT) March 5, 2020
Galaxies Pass will be split into a free and a paid, per usual, with Galaxies Pass+ costing 1350 RP, which is about $10. Upgrading to Pass+ will immediately provide you with over twenty levels of rewards, as well as the UFO Sprite, a cute Little Legend of the River Sprite all decked out with a spaceship to explore the galaxies with. Playing through the pass also will open up the 1 and 2-star variants of the limited-edition Astronaut Molediver, complete with a nice outfit and a shovel.
Riot has also added a new mechanic which they call Booms!, which are cosmetics that alter the damage particles of your Little Legend and their units if you’re successful at the end of a matchup. These come in three tiers, with each being flashier than the last. The only way to grab most of these cosmetics mentioned so far is in the Pass+, so you’ll lose out on getting them if you decide to skip the pass.
You’ll progress through the pass with a new system, as Riot decided to do away with the Orb of Enlightenment mechanic. Instead, you’ll earn a flat amount of XP from every game, with no cap per day. Missions will be overhauled as well, providing more experience and other ways to jump up the tier.
And don’t worry about pay-to-win! The Galaxies Pass and Pass+ both bring cosmetics, so you don’t have to worry about someone having an edge over you just because they got the paid version.
