Warner Bros. removes loot boxes in Shadow of War

Warner Bros. has removed loot boxes and microtransactions in their epic game Shadow of War.

Warner announced that Middle-Earth: Shadow of War – a game heavily criticised for the way it used loot boxes – would be dropping them entirely.

The company’s new update completely removes the market and microtransactions, so you can no longer buy orcs for your army using real money. But what’s most interesting is that Warner has revamped the end-game, which is being streamlined to include new narration from Shelob, the Witch-king, and Dark Talion. Plus, you can now earn Nazgûl masks which give you the ability to raise the dead, curse enemies, and summon more powerful monsters. In the original version of the game it was obvious that the end-game had been made artificially difficult, requiring hours of repetitive gameplay, in order to encourage the use of microtransactions as a short cut. That was the most reprehensible part of the game as far as we were concerned and to see it changed in this way is very encouraging.

The update also brings other changes unrelated to microtransactions, with an increase in level caps and bigger experience point rewards for completing missions. There is also new prestige skills and the ability to upgrade gear by using in-game currency. Overall, there are now more legendary orcs in the game and more ways to get training orders. You also get a few new player skins for Celebrimbor, Dark Eltariel, and Baranor.

Source: metro.co.uk