Free-to-play hero shooter Paladins launches on Switch next week, won’t be free-to-play right away

Well well. After a series of rumours and leaks, it’s finally official: Paladins is coming to Switch next week.

Tonight’s eShop updates included a listing in the Coming Soon tab for Paladins, the hero shooter from Hi-Rez Studios. Paladins is a free-to-play (well, free-to-start, at least) fantasy game with dozens of champions to play as, hundreds of skins, and heaps of abilities to unlock.

There is a slight caveat though. While Paladins will be free-to-play, and is currently free-to-play on every other platform, it won’t be free-to-play on Switch right away. When the game launches on the 12th of June, Switch owners will only have the option to buy the $45.00 AUD Founder’s Pack. The game will then, eventually, become free-to-play, sometime later this year. It’s a bit of a strange tactic, and it’s hard not to be a teensy bit cynical about it, but we’ll just have to see how it plays out.

The language of the eShop listing also seems to suggest there’ll be cross-platform multiplayer with other platforms, but again, until we get clarification, we’ll just have to wait and see.