• Posted February 2nd, 2012 at 15:17 EDT by Mike Harradence
• 2 Comments

Syndicate will not utilize an online pass, publisher Electronic Arts has confirmed.

The upcoming shooter eschews traditional competitive multiplayer in favour of an extensive co-op mode, something which EA Partners’ Jeff Gamon says is the reason for excluding the pass system.

"We want as little resistance or barriers to entry as possible," Gamon told Eurogamer. "The co-op is equal billing in this. We wanted everyone who owns a copy of the game to have access to the entire product."

Online passes are standard for all EA titles as part of the publisher’s internal policy, though this does not extend to the EA Partners label. And, while the Syndicate IP is owned and published by EA, it was developed at Starbreeze under a Partners scheme.

"Under normal circumstances it would have had an online pass, but because it didn't have competitive multiplayer and because we wanted as many people as possible to be playing co-op, we got away with it," Gamon continued.

"Maybe another reason for not having the Online Pass is we were confident in the scope of the online game."

"There are nine maps. It's hard to say, but just to play through the maps once on normal is a good six, seven hours. To progress your character and upgrade a few weapons is a heap of content. That and the single-player campaign means hopefully we won't see much in the way of early second hand sales and rentals."

Syndicate is a reboot of the classic 90s franchise of the same name, and will be released for PlayStation 3, PC and Xbox 360 on February 24.