Syndicate won’t use an online pass

Syndicate won’t use an online pass. EA reasons that the co-op shouldn’t have a barrier to entry, and hopes that the lengthy gameplay will prevent early trade-ins.

February 1, 2012 12:00 PM8

Unlike many of EA’s other games, Syndicate won’t use an Online Pass system, the publisher has confirmed. Partners titles, like Syndicate and Crysis 2, aren’t required to carry one. The move is being touted as a means of encouraging players to try out all of the game’s features, including its co-op play.

“We want as little resistance or barriers to entry as possible,” EA Partners executive producer Jeff Gamon said.

“The co-op is equal billing in this. We wanted everyone who owns a copy of the game to have access to the entire product,” Gamon told Eurogamer.

Gamon says that if the game had included a competitive mode, it would have had an online pass. “But because it didn’t have competitive multiplayer and because we wanted as many people as possible to be playing co-op, we got away with it,” he said. He also points out that the co-op maps will last six or seven hours themselves, which EA hopes will stave off trade-ins and rentals.

Online passes have gotten a lot of attention in the past week for two other EA-published titles: Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, in which the online pass grants access to single-player content; and SSX, which allows multiplayer without the pass but keeps you from using your earned tokens. Now that online passes have become a mainstay, it’s clear that EA is still experimenting to find the right fit for different types of games.