In contrast to GTFO, Den of Wolves will feature both microtransactions and downloadable content (DLC). However, 10 Chambers assures players that its upcoming game won’t include any “manipulative tactics.”

When 10 Chambers launched GTFO into early access in 2019, the world – and the video game industry – was a very different place. The studio, then formed of only nine staff, didn’t know if there was an audience for a super hardcore co-op FPS. So it launched the game as a very simple proposition: it was premium, you buy it once, and you get all the content. No MTX, no DLC, no nonsense. Quelle surprise, it gathered a large, loyal following, sold over 2.5 million copies (only on PC), and made all its development costs back in under 9 days.

But that was six years ago, and a lot has changed since then. Now, all 10 Chambers’ efforts are on Den of Wolves. The team, formed of many ex-Payday developers, is making what it calls both a “4-player co-op heist game” and a “techno-thriller FPS” where you play a gang of criminals enacting corporate espionage, larceny, and sometimes outright murder on the vying mega-corporations that have set up an unregulated financial district in the middle of the Pacific ocean. It was announced at The Game Awards in 2023, and we’ve seen (and heard) a fair amount from the game already.

Perhaps fittingly for a game designed to showcase the perils of power and money, my conversation with 10 Chambers’ audio director Simon Viklund quickly turned to monetization techniques in 2025, and how much has changed for developers since GTFO’s uber-successful launch.

“The way we launched GTFO – you pay for it once, and you have the whole game – that was a viable business approach for when we were nine members of staff,” he tells me. “But now we’re 100 people, the burn rate is way bigger, and Den of Wolves is a much more ambitious game. So we’re hoping it turns into a live service type thing.

“It’s not going to be a subscription service, it’s going to be a premium price. Maybe two-thirds of what triple-A games usually cost. So it’s more in the level of GTFO, the Payday games, and Vermintide – those other first-person co-op games. That’s the space we’re occupying.

“So, yes, there will be microtransactions, most likely. There will be DLC, but nothing that is pay-to-win, nothing that is math-fuckery where, you know, for 20 bucks you buy 100 buckazoids and then everything you can buy in the game costs 64 buckazoids, so you can never ever get rid of all your buckazoids, so you always have that splinter in your mind telling you: ‘I’m leaving money on the table in this game, I need to buy more buckazoids’. It’s manipulative, stuff like that.”

The path forward, then, is to drop more content into the game and give the player the choice when to purchase. MTX will likely be solved in the form of weapon or character skins, and everything will be labelled as clearly as possible – and sold in real currency – so that you know exactly what you’re getting for your money. Oh, and there’ll be no loot boxes, either. Obviously.

“And there’s certainly no gambling! So, certainly nothing where it’s like, you know: ‘I’m buying this box, and I don’t know what’s inside’. We couldn’t sleep at night if we had that! It’s going to be, purely, to keep the game alive. People can vote with their money. Our commitment is to make good content that is good value for money. That people are going to want to buy.”

10 Chambers’ has learned from the missteps of other developers, too. Its policy is that if you buy DLC that unlocks new missions or districts for you to play in, you will be able to host that content and invite people to play who don’t have that same DLC. In much the same way that Hazelight’s games allow you to get friends to co-op its games without the need to buy a title twice.

“This is so we do not split the community into people who have the DLC, and don’t have the DLC, and stuff like that,” continues Viklund. “So it’s not going to be shady stuff, you know. We’re going to be generous. But there needs to be some way for people to keep supporting the game.”

What Viklund says about the monetisation aspect even plays into the narrative ‘wrapping paper’ that defines Den of Wolves’ world. He envisions the idea of Player 1 inviting Players 2 and 3 three to a new district in this dystopian cyberpunk world as a sort of permit-sharing system, where the ‘boss’ that’s planning a heist is doing the legwork in getting his criminal chums access to the skyscraper/megastructure where they’ll be doing their next job.

“You can sort-of roleplay things,” he laughs. “ You don’t say ‘oh I’m matchmaking with other players’. No, you’re ‘going on to the dark net, to find companions or criminal affiliates’ or whatever. It’s such a juicy concept, this entire thing with the heists and the criminal underworld, you can tie so much into that theme.”

Den of Wolves is a solid game. What I’ve played so far (please look out for a preview soon) is a tight, smart take on the heist genre that’s part-Inception, part-Heat, part-Payday 2, and part-Control (the Remedy game, that is). Yeah, that mix is a bit of a headfuck, but this is “the worst version of the game anyone is ever going to play”, per Viklund, due to the fact it’s pre-alpha. And it’s still pretty damn good. I can’t wait to get my hands on more content.

We know 10 Chambers makes a decent game – Overkill’s Payday 1 and 2 and GTFO are testament to that – and now the studio is committing to a game that it can support, keep alive, keep players coming back to. The GTFO hardcore are crying out for more content, and they probably will never get it. But, if 10 Chambers’ gambit pays off with regards to how it wants to fund and fuel Den of Wolves, well… perhaps the best of the studio is yet to come.

Den of Wolves is set to launch into Early Access soon. It will launch for PC, but no window has been given at the time of writing.