The battle pass system is one of the most impactful changes made to gaming, in particular multiplayer gaming, over the past decade. With the industry and the people participating in it actively fighting against loot boxes and pay-to-win mechanics, the battle pass exists as a mostly happy medium between consumers looking to maximize their purchasing power and developers or publishers looking to monetize as best as they can.
Some of the biggest multiplayer games in the world use the battle pass method, with most doing so via a seasonal approach such as Apex Legends, VALORANT, Call of Duty, Destiny 2, and several more. Even Overwatch has adopted seasonal battle passes with the release of Overwatch 2. The battle passes in these games allow players to earn rewards based on how much time they put in, even if that’s just time and not money, but they do offer more to players willing to pay a relatively small upfront cost.
But who started this trend? Which game introduced the very first battle pass?
Dota 2
The first known instance of a paid battle pass came via Dota 2 back in 2013. To celebrate the Dota 2 International for that year, the game’s pinnacle event for its esports scene, Valve released a purchasable Compendium for players to buy.
The Compendium cost $10, with $2.50 of each purchase going to the tournament’s prize pool, which reached an at-the-time esports record of $2.874 million. The Compendium allowed players to make a vast amount of tournament predictions, ranging from winners to most picked hero to fastest kill, and doing so upgraded the pass. Players could also upgrade their Compendium and earn some rewards if they watched a certain number of tournament matches through the client, as well as if the total prize pool passed a certain threshold.
Valve kept the Compendium as a yearly tradition for TI, even adding challenges that required you to play actual games of Dota 2 in future iterations, and increasing the amount and quality of rewards you could earn from upgrading it, turning it into more of the kind of battle pass you see today. Valve has done similar passes in other multiplayer titles like TF2 and CS:GO.
What about Fortnite?
As an honorable mention, we have to talk about Fortnite. While Fortnite did not invent the battle pass, it has certainly been one of the most successful in its execution of the mechanic. Fortnite is one of the highest-grossing games ever and players who own a seasonal pass can earn enough V-Bucks to unlock the next season’s pass without having to spend real money.
