Happy Wars free-to-play multiplayer game to launch on XBLA next week

Castle Crashers meets Battlefield in XBLA’s first free-to-play title

Tarryn van der BylOctober 6, 2012

Happy Wars’ itty-bitty, oh-so-cutey platoons are scrubbing their armour and varnishing their catapults in preparation for tactical deployment next Friday, 12 October, Microsoft has confirmed.

The game is a 15-vs-15 battle arena title, inspired by Castle Crashers and Battlefield, and also the first (but almost definitely not the last) free-to-play game supported by microtransactions on the Xbox LIVE Arcade.

Make love, not war. And by “love”, I mean “happy war”.

Happy Wars includes both single- and multiplayers campaign and will be free for all Xbox LIVE Gold subscribers. Additional goodies – limited to cosmetic enhancements – will be available to buy, and Microsoft has promised to maintain a steady supply of new stuff post-launch.

Pricing for those people who don’t pay for Xbox LIVE Gold has not yet been announced, although with a subscription required for all multiplayer on the service anyway, it’s possible the game will simply not be sold on the Marketplace at all.