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How Battle Passes Work (and When One Is Worth Buying)
ONI Games · Published
A battle pass is a season of rewards you unlock by playing, with a free track and a paid one. The real maths of a 30-tier pass: how much you must play to finish it and how to tell if it is worth it.
A battle pass is a season of rewards that you unlock by playing. You earn points (usually called XP) from quests and matches, every few hundred points unlock the next tier, and each tier has a reward. There is a free track that everyone gets and a premium track that you buy, and when the season ends, everything starts again.
Is it worth it? A pass is worth buying if you will reach the last tier at your normal pace, and if the premium rewards are things you would want anyway. The maths below shows how to check both.
Where battle passes come from
The idea started on PC. Dota 2 had an early version called the Compendium for its big tournament, The International, in 2013, and Valve turned it into a Battle Pass in 2016. Fortnite made the model famous when it added a battle pass in its second season, in December 2017, and since then almost every popular free game on phones has one.
Developers like passes because they turn a one-off purchase into a regular one, every season, and because they give players a reason to play every day. Players like them because a good pass is one of the best-value purchases in a free game.
How a battle pass works: a real example
Here is the Cyber Pass from our game Idle Ronin, with the numbers from its code:
| Cyber Pass | |
|---|---|
| Season length | 28 days |
| Tiers | 30 |
| XP per tier | 500 (15,000 for the whole pass) |
| XP per daily quest | 100 (six a day) |
| XP for the daily quest chest | 200 |
| XP per weekly quest | 250 (five a week) |
| Other XP | 50 per dungeon win, 20 per tower floor, 5 per boss, 50 per achievement |
Everyone gets the free track. Over 30 tiers it pays 480 diamonds, 2,700 gold and 9 Unit Cores. The premium track adds 1,900 diamonds (1,000 of them on the last tier), 4,200 gold, 30 Unit Cores and 6 Refine Crystals.
How much do you have to play to finish a pass?
This is the most important number, and games rarely show it. To finish our 15,000 XP pass in 28 days you need an average of 536 XP a day. Here is how long it takes at different levels of effort:
A player who clears every daily quest and its chest (800 XP a day) finishes in about 19 days, or 15 with the weekly quests too. A player who does about half the dailies and the weeklies finishes in about 26 days, just in time. Anyone doing less will not reach the last tier, which is where the biggest reward sits. That is not an accident: passes are designed so that finishing them takes regular play.
Is a battle pass worth buying?
Ask these five questions before you pay:
- Will I finish it? Work out the XP per day the pass needs, as above, and compare it with how you actually play. If you will stop at tier 20, you are paying for rewards you will not get.
- Are the rewards retroactive? In most passes, including ours, buying the premium track later unlocks the premium rewards of every tier you already reached. Then there is no rush: buy it near the end, once you know you will finish.
- What would the same money buy directly? Compare the premium rewards with the game's normal shop. A pass usually gives several times more currency per dollar than a gem pack.
- Does the pass sell tiers? Some games let you buy the tiers you did not earn. That is a sign the pass is tuned to be hard to finish.
- Do I want what is on it? Cosmetics only matter if you care about them. Currency and upgrades matter only if you keep playing after the season.
Watch out for season resets
When a season ends, a new pass starts from tier 1, and in many games unclaimed rewards are lost. In Idle Ronin the new season clears your XP, your premium status and your claimed tiers, so collect everything before the season ends. Games usually show a countdown on the pass screen; check it when you get close to the end.
Battle pass vs monthly card
Many mobile games sell a monthly card next to the pass: you pay once and collect a reward every day for 30 days. Idle Ronin's Cyber Card, for example, gives 300 diamonds at once and 60 diamonds a day for 30 days (2,100 in total if you log in every day), and it adds 4 hours to the offline earnings cap. A card rewards logging in; a pass rewards playing. If you open a game daily but play briefly, the card is usually better value. If you play a lot, the pass is.
FAQ
What is the difference between a battle pass and a season pass?
In mobile games the terms are used for the same thing: a seasonal reward track. On consoles and PC, a season pass can also mean paid access to future expansions.
Can you finish a battle pass without paying?
You can finish the free track by playing. The premium track needs the purchase, and some games offer the premium currency needed for the next pass as a reward inside the current one.
What happens to my pass rewards when the season ends?
It depends on the game. Many, including Idle Ronin, start fresh, and rewards you did not claim are gone. Some games send unclaimed rewards to your mailbox. Claim as you go to be safe.
Sources
- Battle pass, Wikipedia (history of the Dota 2 Compendium and Fortnite's first pass).
- ONI Games, Idle Ronin LiveOps.cs: Cyber Pass and Cyber Card rules and rewards, September 2026.
