Another day, another studio drastically altering how they deliver in-game crate content to fans. Sensing the changing tide of live-service games getting out of the lootbox business, likely, though not admittedly, for fear of government crackdown, the PUBG team said they're ditching pay-to-open crates. In a letter to fans titled, "Improving Crate Content," PUBG dev Sujin Kim said through player feedback, they found that "more often players do not get enjoyment out of opening crates as they currently exist."
With that in mind, several changes will take hold beginning this week as they're rolled out for the next month, as quoted by Kim:
- Random Crates purchased with BP will no longer contain crates that require a key to open.
- Locked Crates from Random purchases will no longer be available starting Dec. 18th.
- Crates already in your inventory or acquired via the marketplace can still be opened with the appropriate key, which can still be purchased from the store and can still be purchased or sold on the marketplace.
- The new Crate will retain the trade value of the highest tier item; the probability for each tier has been adjusted overall to increase the likelihood of acquiring a weapon of an attractive design.
Though patches have been "continuously carried out" to both lower the chances of players receiving locked crates and improve the contents within for when players did decide to buy a key to open a crate, Kim says these changes have not completely resolved the issue and that rewards in randomized crates are generally seen as not enticing enough for players who like to trade on the PUBG marketplace.
With these changes in mind, the studio has unveiled a schedule of changes going forward. First, on November 20, the new Venetian crate will be available and it will be directly purchasable with BP, the game's free in-game currency earned through play. All Venetian crates will be unlocked and not require keys, and all future crates will follow the same pattern. The contents of the Venetian crate can be seen below. It includes 16 weapon skins.
A week later on November 27, the drop rates of locked crates in general will be "notably decreased" as they're phased out of PUBG. Finally, on December 18 all locked crates will disappear from PUBG, save for any still in player inventories. Keys will still be available for purchase strictly from these players and only up to the same quantity of locked crates they still have.
Kim says the team hopes these changes mean means "one less step a player interested in those items will have to go through."
