When is Disney Dreamlight Valley going Free to Play?

Disney Dreamlight Valley launched over a year ago in “Early Access” on September 6th, 2022. Since then there have been many content additions and performance fixes, but the idea was eventually, according to developer Gameloft, Disney Dreamlight Valley would be a free-to-play game. In fact, at last update, the game is supposed to go free-to-play sometime in 2023, and we are rapidly closing in on the end of the year with no announced date in sight.

Meanwhile, Disney Speedstorm, Gameloft’s racing title featuring Disney characters, only launched in early access a few months ago and is already racing towards it’s own free-to-play launch in just a few days on September 28th. I haven’t kept up a whole lot with Disney Speedstorm since my initial impressions and granted in many ways it’s a smaller scale of game than Disney Dreamlight Valley, but it seems odd that Gameloft was able to ramp up one game that quickly to its proper release and this other one is taking significantly longer.

Especially since, unless they are going to majorly revamp some things, in many ways, Disney Dreamlight Valley has well, plateaued. And I don’t mean to say that I’m done and bored with Disney Dreamlight Valley. I actually still really quite enjoy it as a game I can spend some time with every few months when some significant new content drops like the recent Beauty and the Beast update (though still believe the whole inventory and storage system needs a pretty significant overhaul).

But at the same time, I don’t see Disney Dreamlight Valley being more than it is right now. You do mostly menial quests for your Disney friends that involve farming, fishing, cooking, crafting, etc., and max out their friendship levels, maybe design your house or revamp the various biodomes to your will, and so on. But it’s been this game for months already. Anyone who would get the game when it does go free-to-play has a pretty staggering amount of content to get into assuming Gameloft doesn’t suddenly paywall a bunch of it. And it’s not like updates would stop once the game goes free-to-play. So what are they waiting for?

Granted, we have hit a pretty loaded time in 2023 when it comes to videogames, there are tons of massive games that either just released or are releasing real soon so it’s completely possible, especially with their other Disney game launching into free-to-play, Gameloft just took a look at the landscape and decided now was not an optimal time and waiting for the release schedule to lighten up a bit. It’s also not that unusual for games to spend multiple years in early access, but often those games go through some really significant changes in that time. Content and bug fixes aside, Disney Dreamlight Valley is at its core the same game as when it launched. When will Disney Dreamlight Valley go free-to-play? Your guess is as good as mine.

That’s all for today however I will definitely try to squeeze one more entry in before the end of the month so see ya real soon!