F2P CCG Infinity Wars Classic Will Make All Cards Free, For All Players

It's still a little weird that a game that's been out for nine years can be in beta, but that's the case with Lightmare Studios' free-to-play CCG Infinity Wars Classic. The open beta for the remastered game will be coming soon, and when it does, Lightmare will kick off a Kickstarter for its new expansion set, Intrigue.

That beta will be coming sometime in 2022. Based on its current progress, Lightmare hopes that it can happen in as little as three months.

What's even more interesting about IWC's future is that Lightmare plans to convert the game over to a CTCG, or Complete Trading Card Game, where all players have access to all cards in the game, including all past and future sets, for free. This will help create a level playing field between new and old players, so new players aren't curbstomped by someone with a huge collection of rare cards from day one. You can still earn packs and spend money for cosmetics and "prestige," such as upgrading your grayscale-image card to something that's colored and animated.

If you're a player of the original Infinity Wars and are concerned about how your collection will be devalued once everyone gets everything for free ... well, Lightmare agrees with you, to a degree. "The best thing we can do here is make all normal (non-special) cards converted to IWC come along with a certain rarity and visual flare." In other words, the cards you've bought or grinded for will be upgraded visually, so you can "flex on the new playerbase."

Lightmare explained the concept in a "Future of Infinity Wars Classic" video in January, and the response from players seems pretty positive. Lightmare plans to focus on IWC's onboarding to keep confusion at a minimum for new players -- a valid concern when you consider that they'll have to sort through hundreds of cards the moment they get into the game.