The singular paid DLC was mentioned in the Polygon interview from a couple weeks ago, and people latched onto "microtransactions," because that's a dirty word, and now the game is going to be free for its launch to people, and people decided that "if it's free, and there's microtransactions, that must be how they're planning to make money!"
It's a game of telephone, where the message was interpreted and distorted by people in sequence, before reaching Reddit and whatever other internet hubs as "a free game that's supported by microtransactions."
