Card battler The Bazaar is finally coming to Steam, but no longer free-to-play

High-speed card game The Bazaar is finally coming to Steam, and it's bringing a new character with it. The autobattling deckbuilder, which blends elements of Hearthstone Battlegrounds, Slay the Spire, TFT, and Super Auto Pets into a stylish showdown of synergies, has a lot in its favor. Unfortunately, it's also run into much controversy with its community around monetization and feedback. Now, as developer Tempo Games finally prepares to launch The Bazaar on the Valve store, it's sure to prove a key turning point in the game's fortunes, especially as Tempo is stripping out the old free-to-play model altogether.

Founded by former Magic the Gathering and Hearthstone pro player Andrey 'Reynad' Yanyuk, The Bazaar is focused on a specific highlight of many of the best card games: setting up combos. As each run progresses, you build a board of items and equipment that all enhance and bounce off each other. One might inflict poison on your opponent every three seconds, triggering a second object that buffs the weapons on either side of it each time a poison effect is used. Find the right build, and you'll set off huge chain reactions that rapidly stack up your damage while delivering debuffs and disables to your opponent's deck.

Launched into 1.0 back in March using Tempo's standalone client, the biggest question on players' lips has been if and when we'll finally get The Bazaar on Steam, and now we know. In a new video blog, Reynad confirms that the game will be made available to play via the Valve platform on Wednesday August 13. "This is a really big step for us as a studio," he remarks, "We think it's going to get the game in front of a lot more players and help you out with some of the launcher issues you've been having, like download times and things like that."

With the move to Steam, Reynad says the team wants to step away from the old free-to-play model. "This is going to let us get rid of a lot of annoying free-to-play things in the game and just make a better product, a game that's more fun. It's going to align our incentives with you guys a lot more." If you already had the game, he assures that "you can play it forever as if you had bought it," and that you'll get access to all of the first four heroes even if you hadn't previously unlocked them.

Players who buy The Bazaar on Steam will get the game's original three heroes, Vanessa, Pygmalien, and Dooley, included in the $45 asking price. Mac, Stelle, and any future characters will be offered as paid DLC. The controversial entry fees for the ranked mode are going away; "We don't need to do those anymore if the game's not free-to-play," Reynad explains. The expansions that gave paying players access to cards before others are also being removed. "Any time we release a new item for a hero, everyone will get it at the same time immediately if they have that hero."

The Prize Pass, which found itself at the center of one of The Bazaar's first and most notable controversies, will no longer have paid tier skips; instead, it's "just free, cosmetic extra stuff." Reynad confirms there won't be any other subscriptions, and that the planned player-to-player cosmetic marketplace has been canceled altogether; any duplicates you have on your account will now be converted to gems instead.

"We'd rather focus our resources on bigger features that are going to make the game more fun, things like single player, mobile, localization, the Atlas, achievements and progression systems, ways to play with your friends," Reynad concludes. "We'd rather dedicate our resources and time to building those things than monetization stuff. Overall, we think this is a healthy direction for the game and the studio. We think it'll be a lot more fun for you guys, a lot more sustainable for us, and we hope that you're as excited about the changes as you are."

Alongside the Steam launch comes new character Stelle. An ingenious engineer, Tempo teases that "there's nothing Stelle can't repair or improve." Her deck options revolve around vehicles, tech, shields, and effects such as flying, which she can grant to items using the Flycycle or Unstable Grav Well. The high-potency Private Runabout reduces its cooldown for all flying items you currently have, while Hang Glider causes all your small items to periodically gain flying, and deals a hefty 100 damage each time something on your side of the board comes crashing back down to earth.

There are other options at Stelle's disposal, of course. The giant Tantius Carrier airship causes all your other vehicles on the board to be considered as drones. It then grants multicast to drones on either side of it, and stacks up damage buffs of its own each time one of your drones is used to become a late-game force to be feared. If you've got enough sustain, it could quickly grow completely out of control. In total, Stelle will have over 100 new items to play around with from the get-go.

The Bazaar launches on Steam Wednesday August 13, priced at $45. The base package includes Vanessa, Pygmalien, and Dooley. Additional characters will be priced at $20 each. You can wishlist the game now to be notified when it launches.

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