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Buy-to-Play Model
August 17, 2026 at 03:06 AM
Added cosmetic sales figures and August milestones, corrected paid expansions to free story updates
DragonSword: Awakening is a buy-to-play (B2P) release of an originally free-to-play Korean game. Hound13 has been explicit that the Western version is designed as a single-package purchase rather than a live-service F2P product.
In Hound13's own words, through Steam FAQ answers by a studio manager operating under the name Hooon:
"DragonSword: Awakening is a B2P title, and we are not considering selling monthly subscriptions (passes)."
"All heroes and equipment in DragonSword: Awakening can be obtained through the story and in-game activities."
"It is a single-player RPG where the story and exploration in an open world are the main focus."
"We support cooperative play via invite codes for certain content (subjugation and raids)."
The original DragonSword launched in South Korea on January 21, 2026, as a free-to-play title on PC, iOS, and Android published through Webzen. That version used gacha distribution for heroes and live-service F2P progression systems. Publishing operations ran into contractual disputes when Webzen failed to pay the remaining minimum guarantee tied to the deal, and Hound13 formally terminated the arrangement on February 13, 2026.
No gacha pulls for Heroes. All 19 Heroes are obtainable through story progression and in-game activities.
No monthly subscriptions or battle passes. Hound13 has said on record they are not considering selling passes.
No stamina gate. The Key of Light stamina system from the free-to-play version has been removed, so players can farm for character growth and equipment without an energy limit. Everything that previously supported multiplayer (subjugation, raids) is preserved as opt-in co-op rather than as a funnel into monetisation.
No live-service extras. There is no PvP, no leaderboard, no player-to-player item trading, and no mod support in the launch package. The game can be played offline from start to finish.
Single-player first. The campaign is a self-contained single-player experience with optional Co-Op for specific content.
Hound13 has publicly scoped the store-side monetisation for the Western release to two categories, with expansion packs layered in on top:
Character costumes. Purely cosmetic outfits for the playable Heroes. Five costume sets shipped at launch at $3.99 each, covering Ornette, Cerese, Theresia, Dana, and Kalsion, each bundled with a matching weapon costume and toggles for accessories such as eyepatches and headpieces. Kalien's costume is instead hidden in a secret in-game region rather than sold. The promised swimsuit costumes for Reina and Astria arrived on July 31 as part of a three-piece Summer Sea Set at $7.99 each, joined by one for Cerese.
Additional Familiars (mounts). There are roughly 30 familiars in the game; about two-thirds are obtainable directly through play, and the remaining third are sold as DLC. The difference between free and paid familiars is purely cosmetic: collecting more familiars of the same species unlocks and strengthens shared abilities, such as jumping while climbing or reduced stamina cost, regardless of whether they were earned or bought.
Expansion packs. Future content introducing new characters and worlds, with World 2 (the floating islands) named as the next destination. The framing changed after launch: on August 10, 2026 Hound13 said major story content is planned as free updates rather than paid downloadable content, while the pricing of the floating-island region itself remains undecided.
Deluxe Edition. Rather than a separate storefront edition, the Deluxe material ships as a $19.99 add-on pack bundling a digital artbook of about 80 pages of concept art, the original soundtrack, and the Deluxe-exclusive familiar Brave Baby Dragon. Bought with the base game it comes to the $49.99 announced before release, and the store also lists the pair as a bundle at a ten percent saving.
Hound13 CEO Park Jung-sik has said publicly that the pivot to self-published B2P came out of necessity rather than roadmap planning. After the Webzen payment and contract dispute cut off revenue, the choice was between letting the service shut down and letting the game disappear, or preserving the work as a package game on Steam. The Steam rework was framed as a choice to preserve the game.
By mid-May 2026 the buy-to-play package had cleared 100,000 Steam wishlists, a milestone Hound13 publicly thanked players for in a developer post tied to the Ornette reveal. It went on to carry 450,000 wishlists into release. The studio used the post to restate the same monetisation scope: costumes, additional Familiars, and future expansion packs as the only paid layers beyond the base game. That scope held through release.
The shipped package carries 59 Steam achievements, Steam Cloud saves, stats, and Family Sharing. Character growth is uncapped: heroes progress through a six-stage transcendence system whose materials come from the main story, growth guides, mercenary guild achievements, and exploration.
Hound13 has been deliberate about how it announces the parts of the package that affect a purchase decision. In June 2026, after the demo, the studio confirmed the Standard Edition launch price at $29.99 USD and €29.99 EUR (₩33,000 in Korea), applying regional pricing that factors in exchange rates and local purchasing power. On June 18, 2026 it confirmed the release day: the game launches worldwide on July 23, 2026 at 07:00 KST. The Korean publisher dispute reached its first ruling the day before launch, when a Seoul court dismissed Webzen's injunction request in full; the main lawsuit remains open. The B2P scope of the package itself was committed to publicly early, and that scope (no gacha, no subscription, all 19 Heroes and equipment obtainable in-game, optional cosmetic costumes and Familiars as the only paid post-launch categories outside expansion packs) is what is locked in for the Steam release.
Because DragonSword: Awakening was Hound13's first release, pre-purchase was never offered, so sales opened at the July 23 unlock. As a launch celebration, the Abyssal Direwolf familiar is free for all players until August 31, 2026 at 07:00 KST, after which it reverts to its $7.99 price.
The catalogue that went live matches what was promised, with one wrinkle: the paid Familiars outnumber the costumes. Nineteen store items existed within ten days of release, made up of the Deluxe Pack, five launch costume sets at $3.99 each, twelve Familiars at $3.99 each, and a three-costume Summer Sea Set at $7.99 per piece added on July 31. There is no gacha, no subscription, and no battle pass, and in the post-launch FAQ Hound13 restated that no separate in-game microtransactions exist beyond that catalogue.
Two details are worth knowing before buying. Store items do not land in the field automatically: a Familiar has to be claimed through the Codex and a costume through the Heroes menu. And a launch-day bug briefly displayed unpurchased downloadable content as owned, crashing the game if a player tried to equip it, which patch 1.0.1 fixed the same day. The full catalogue with prices sits in Downloadable Content.
The August 10, 2026 broadcast is the first time Hound13 attached numbers to the cosmetic layer. The three Summer Sea Set swimsuit costumes sold more than 100,000 units between them, a result the studio called far beyond expectations. Outside that set, the best-selling costume is Black-Dyed Vestment, worn by Theresia.
The studio used the same session to close off the monetisation questions that a package game invites. A season pass is not planned. There is no costume subscription and no pay-what-you-want tipping. Discounts follow the storefront's standard schedule, bundle savings already work through the complete-the-set mechanism, and refunds go through the storefront rather than the studio. Free giveaways in the style of the Abyssal Direwolf are being considered for costumes as well. Beyond cosmetics there are no microtransaction plans at all.
Hound13 also acknowledged the awkward side of running a package game after launch: unlike a live-service title it has few levers for handing rewards to existing owners, and it said it is looking for other ways to reward players and will share them once the shape is clearer. See Downloadable Content for the full catalogue and Post-Launch Roadmap for what is being funded.
The gacha-free framing was the pitch, and it appears to have worked. Hound13 reported passing 200,000 copies sold in the first week and a peak of 23,000 concurrent players, and on August 11, 2026 announced 1,000,000 wishlists and 300,000 copies sold. The storefront's user-review summary holds at Very Positive across more than 10,000 reviews, roughly nine in ten of them positive, and the game placed third on the storefront's global top-seller chart for the week of July 21 to 28. The studio also committed to building the four post-launch Heroes regardless of sales, which is the clearest statement yet that the roadmap is not contingent on further spending. See Post-Launch Roadmap.
