The Secret World goes free-to-play, sorta.

Funcom announced a new pricing scheme for The Secret World, yesterday. They’ve done away with the subscription fees – an antiquated pricing model, anyway – and gone free-to-play. Okay, they’re not calling it free-to-play, but that’s really what it is. And the good news is, it’s not the pain-in-the-tuchus F2P model EA gave gamers, recently, when Star Wars: The Old Republic went F2p; it’s more the Guild Wars 2 model.

Just purchase the game, which is a measly $30, now, and “you have access to all the content available right now, including all playfields, all missions; you may enter all lairs, participate in raids, learn all abilities, use all equipment and so on.” Funcom is hoping you’ll spend money on the game’s cool looking gear available in the cash store and, maybe, become a member, which gives you some monthly bonuses. However, it appears you could get by without any of that, never paying a penny beyond the price of the game, and still enjoy access to all the content.

The info thread is here.

As a pay-to-play game, TSW left a bit to be desired, but as a F2P game, it’s going to be one of the best F2P games available. If you’re looking for a F2P game, you might want to skip the aggravation of SWTOR and try TSW.