Ironclad's RTS Sins of a Dark Age may be F2P, but you can't "pay to win"

Ironclad co-founder Blair Fraser has said the studio played a "crapload" of free-to-play games while doing homework for its team-based RTS Sins of a Dark Age - which goes into beta this summer.

"We played all the Zynga stuff, even the more 'hardcore' strategy games," he told Gamasutra. "We've obviously been looking at what other people have been doing in the PC space."

Don't expect it to resemble a Zynga game, though as he said the team hates the idea of "selling in-game power."

"Strategy games should be your skill, your brain, your tactical and strategic thought against someone else's, or against the enemy AI's strategies," he said.

"If you're just going to allow people to go: 'Here's a bunch of money. I win,' that just defeats the entire purpose for us. That might be a great way to make money, but it just doesn't jive with what our concept of what a strategy game is.

"We're not just in this to make money. We wouldn't have all quit our jobs and started up a small company if it was just about making money. I could've easily moved into banking or whatever."

In Sins of a Dark Age, players join an online team consisting of one commander “and a small group of heroes who work together to accomplish a specific scenario goal. Go head-to-head against an enemy team in a short, fast-paced multiplayer match or work cooperatively against the AI in custom scenarios.”

No exact date just yet, but you can sign up for the beta and get more information through the official website.