Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 has loot boxes now – and they’re awful.
The arrival of loot boxes to the full-price shooter comes four months after the game launched, and adds another layer of microtransactions on top of what was already a game drenched in various ways for players to spend money.
Black Ops 4’s loot boxes are called Reserve Crates, and cost 200 COD Points (£1.79) each. You can also gain reserve items through time played (you get one item every two hours spent in multiplayer or Blackout). A Reserve Crate includes three different cosmetic items, such as outfits, weapon camos and warpaint. However, you can also get new signature weapons in Reserve Crates. These are a “MKII” version of a gun that provides a 25 per cent experience point boost per kill.
Black Ops 4 players have said the fact loot boxes are in the game is bad enough, but the way the loot boxes work feels particularly grubby. Black Ops 4’s loot boxes do not display probabilities, unlike loot boxes in, for example, FIFA Ultimate Team and Apex Legends. They can also contain duplicates. The image, below, shows the content of one loot box I opened this morning. It includes the Daemon 3XB signature weapon.
This image shows the content of another loot box I opened this morning, which also included the Daemon 3XB signature weapon.
As is obvious, Black Ops 4’s loot boxes go beyond cosmetics-only. I obtained the Swat RFT assault rifle from one crate, and I’ve already mentioned obtaining the Daemon 3XB – twice. These are meaningful signature weapons that were added to the game in Operation Absolute Zero back in December. Now, the versions found in loot boxes come with an XP boost, which is certainly gameplay affecting. Also, if you missed out on these weapons back in December, loot boxes are your only hope of getting them now.
As you’d expect, this hasn’t gone down well with the Call of Duty community. “I don’t care if you like the game or don’t. If you still enjoy it, that’s good for you. But please, do not support this obvious, audacious cash grab,” wrote redditor c3ix on r/Blackops4.