Progression passes! Battle passes! Depending on who you ask, they are a cool goal for players to work towards and get neat rewards, a means to ensure players only play one live service game at a time, or a scourge on the gaming industry.

For those who have completely missed the concept, these are optional progression paths that are only available for a limited time. By reaching certain goals, such as XP earned or quests completed, players are given rewards (usually but not always cosmetic in nature) that are exclusive to that pass. These can include a "free" track, with some smaller rewards available for free, and a paid-for "premium" track, with a many more better rewards available for a fee.

Depending on the game, once time is up:

* The pass expires and can no longer be purchased or progressed, and any unearned rewards are gone forever (Notable examples include *Fortnite*, *Overwatch* and *Call of Duty*),
* A new pass is released but it's still possible to purchase and/or progress older passes (*Halo: Infinite*),
* The game allows you to purchase and progress older passes alongside a newly released pass (*Super Animal Royale*), or
* Unearned rewards are made earnable through existing game mechanics (*Deep Rock Galactic*, before an update to its pass system made it more like dot point 2).

*Fortnite* is very arguably the game that popularized the "Battle Pass" system in 2017, but is it the first game to introduce such a system? If not, which game was it?