It’s a sign of how quickly expectations change that Respawn Entertainment’s announcement that Titanfall 2 [official site] will not have a Season Pass for post-release content is something of a surprise. The new normal for big releases, particularly those with multiplayer, seems to include a pass that costs as much as the base game, promising oodles of extra maps, modes, and other DLC bits and pieces across an entire season. A season, like a piece of string, is of indeterminate length.

Titanfall 2 is having none of that: “No season pass required: all maps & modes will be free in Titanfall 2 Multiplayer”, it says on the site, bold as brass.

Respawn had declared their intention of providing free DLC earlier this year, saying that the cost of keeping a team working on post-release content might be paid for using sales of cosmetic items. There’s no confirmation whether or not that’ll be the case, though in their new explanation of the DLC policy, there is no mention of cosmetic items at all:

This means no splitting up the community and it all starts with the legendary Angel City map, remastered from the original Titanfall. This means once you’ve purchased Titanfall 2, your investment includes a full single player campaign, the full multiplayer maps and modes, and long-term support with no hidden costs. You can pre-order the game to play 3 days early, but it will never cost you extra.

I can’t argue with that, so I won’t. Even my beloved Civilization VI pulled a shady move by locking the Aztecs down as a pre-order timed exclusive. Good on Respawn for bucking wallet-punishing trends.

Of course, this isn’t an act of generosity as such. A game without the potential to fragment its own playerbase should benefit Respawn, the intent being to create a game with long-term appeal, which should be good for both players and studio. All the free maps and modes in the world won’t help if the game itself isn’t up to scratch though and over on the same page where the post-release plans are outlined, you can read all about the movement, the titans themselves, the tone, and the singleplayer campaign’s bossfights and variety of challenges. We’ll be the judge of all that in the coming days, as we stomp and shoot through the game, holding hands with our favourite robot

Titanfall 2 is out tomorrow.