EA is continuing their trend away from loot boxes and has committed to leaving them out of Need for Speed: Heat, permanently. Considering the widespread uproar caused by the prevalence of loot boxes in EA's Star Wars Battlefront 2, it's a big relief the mega-publisher is taking this step to ensure history doesn't repeat itself.
If there's one name synonymous with the loot box controversy in gaming, it is Electronic Arts. 2017's Star Wars Battlefront 2 may be the most infamous example, but the publisher has been monetizing their games using loot boxes and microtransactions for some time - Need for Speed: Payback springs to mind. Although it certainly has its own flaws, 2019's Anthem finally showed a step in the right direction for EA by leaving out loot boxes and pay-to-win microtransactions entirely.
Need for Speed: Heat will also be completely free of loot boxes, confirmed EA Community Manager Ben Walke. Responding in a Reddit thread for the official Need for Speed: Heat trailer, Walke stated simply, "There are no Lootboxes in NFS Heat and there won't be."
One skeptical user replied to Walke's statement and asked how EA plans to monetize Need for Speed: Heat post-launch, to which Walke responded, "We plan to have post launch paid-DLC in the form of car packs. Later this year we'll introduce a time-save pack, which will show all collectables on the map. That's it."
The announcement comes in the heat of a shift in the industry away from random loot boxes and toward a more orderly, predictable system for microtransactions.
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