War of the Roses demo now listed as free to play

You might not have known it, but Fatshark's rendition of the 15th century English battle, War of the Roses , has been a free-to-play game for quite some time now. The base game became a free trial earlier this year, being free-to-play in all but name. Now, it has the name.

The game's publisher, Paradox Interactive, launched a premium version of the game called War of the Roses: Kingmaker, which added new weapons and modes in which to slaughter your countrymen. It's what the paid version of the game became, and those who had already bought the original game received Kingmaker for free. A version of the game with only the base classes and weapons then became a free trial for people to check out before buying the paid version.

To be fair, “free game” sounds much more appealing than “free demo” does, though there's no difference between the two other than one being listed in the free-to-play aisle of the Steam store. The game's free-to-play version offers the four base profiles to use while you battle for crown and country in the conquest or team deathmatch modes, while the Kingmaker version adds more modes and player profiles.

War of the Roses had a few problems when we first reviewed it , but that was before the glut of free updates the game has received. Plus, we get a warm, fuzzy feeling whenever we slam our shields down upon an opponent's neck. In the game, of course.