In what’ll as immensely good news to anybody who had the unfortunate task of playing Need For Speed Payback - EA has confirmed Need For Speed Heat will not have any form of loot boxes whatsoever.

“There are no Lootboxes in NFS Heat and there won't be,” said Electronic Arts community manager Ben ‘F8RGE’ Walke on Reddit. When asked in a follow-up question “what about the Surprise Mechanics,” he reiterated “None of those too.”

And breathe. What a relief. An actual Electronic Arts game is arriving without loot boxes. Pinch me, am I dreaming? Has EA actually begun to learn its lessons? Perhaps that NFS Payback and Star Wars Battlefront 2 blowback has finally hit home. We’ve still got our doubts until the game is actually in our hands, but it all certainly sounds promising.

As for how EA plans to monetise NFS Heat post-launch, because of course they will, this will take the form of paid DLC such as car packs, as well as a time-saver pack which will show all of the collectibles on the world map. It sounds a lot like Forza Horizon 4’s monetisation which certainly worked well enough, yet it’s still a far cry from EA’s usual money gobbling antics.

Need For Speed Heat is tearing up the tarmac on the way to a November 8th launch worldwide on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.