For the main alterations, you’ll have to wait until season 2: but why does this game even have seasons?
The Chocobo GP issues have been piling up since launch, mostly due to the season pass system. Wait, a season pass system? Yeah, I know.
For those of you who haven’t experienced this yet, Chocobo GP is a serviceable kart racer with a big monetization problem that gates off content through a battle/season pass mechanic. It also has a premium currency, and players are given a little taste to start. Slowly but surely folks started to encounter issues progressing the pass due to connection issues (and slow progression in general), and realized that the free currency taste had an expiration date.
Over on the Japanese Twitter account for the game (translated by Sat-AM on Reddit), Square Enix provided a laundry list of changes that are on the way, but most of them won’t be implemented until season 2 (a few months away). The gist is that now, bugs will be fixed so people can actually participate in online GP races, which provide season pass progression. There will also be “relaxed” requirements for battle pass tiers, and people got another 500 apology currency on top of that aforementioned taste.
But the real solution to some of those Chocobo GP issues will be addressed later, after season 1 has concluded. More tracks will arrive in the future, and will be available to “all players.” More costumes (for premium currency) are on the way too, on top of game balance issues, and a potential rework of how DLC is implemented due to “fan feedback.” Premium currency will additionally be added as a reward in the season pass, which should have been there from the get-go. Square Enix also noted that each season would host “two characters,” and that they are looking into re-introducing characters at a later date to avoid FOMO. Of course, this is all vague and there are no concrete plans.
I’d be surprised if this game lasted more than a few seasons in its current state. I really hope that if one day it just shuts down unceremoniously, all of the season pass gated content just gets reworked into the base game. If Square Enix wants the season pass system to succeed and yield a profit, people actually need to be playing it and pumping money into it: I’d be real curious to see the internal sales figures for season 2.
