Naughty Dog launched the free-to-play Uncharted 3 multiplayer client late last month, and according to their figures, it's already a huge success. The studio announced today on the PlayStation Blog that it has been download over 350,000 times in the span of just a few weeks.
The client was officially released on February 26, and allows gamers to play the full Uncharted 3 multiplayer portion for free until level 15. If players are enjoying the game, they can pay $5 to raise the level cap to 25, or $20 to remove it altogether. Additional microtransaction options for in game items and map packs have also been implemented.
Naughty Dog also announced earlier today that it will be releasing new paid DLC options for the game every month through June, effectively turning Uncharted 3's multiplayer into a microtransaction-based, free-to-play game. The first of these content packs will be today's "Oddball-themed character parts," inspired in part by March 20's "Extraterrestrial Abductions Day."
You can view a full list of items this DLC will be adding at the Uncharted 3 free to play page here.
While Naughty Dog has not disclosed how much revenue the free client has brought in, 350,000 is still a very impressive figure. Microtransactions are always a controversial issue, and this seems like a fairly novel way of breathing some new life back into an older game.
Uncharted 3 was originally released in November of 2011 to widespread critical acclaim. Since then, Naughty Dog has revealed that over 3.5 million people have played in over 37 million multiplayer matches. About 500,000 players actively log in to the game every month.
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