Locked crates that can only be opened with shop-bought keys will be removed from PUBG. The changes will kick in on December 18.

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PUBG Is Getting Rid Of Locked Crates From Random Purchases

Locked crates that can only be opened with shop-bought keys will be removed from PUBG, according to the game’s item development team. Currently players in the battle royale can recieve both unlocked and locked crates, with chances of specialized items such as stat-tracked guns appearing in the latter. But after careful consideration, PUBG Corp will begin to phase locked crates out of the game to satisfy the larger playerbase, who currently feel cheated out of their reward when they are dropped a locked crate.

PUBG’s loot box system is getting an overhaul, with locked crates set to be removed altogether. Not unlike CS:GO’s system, these locked crates have always required a key to purchase, and keys can only be obtained with real world money: they cost $2.50 in-game, and at variable rates on the Steam Marketplace. But come December 18 they’ll be obsolete.

This means all crate contents can now be unlocked using PUBG’s BP currency, which is rewarded by the playing the game, unless you choose to purchase crates via the Steam Marketplace.

Sujin Kim of the PUBG item production dev team, says:

“We’ve found that players do not get enjoyment out of opening crates as they currently exist” “We want to steer clear of revenue models that fail to satisfy fans, especially if they include a low success rate.”

In a dev letter on the PUBG website, the changes are explained in detail. Random crate purchases with BP will no longer have the chance to contain locked crates starting from December 18. Locked crates already owned will still operate in the same way into the future. The dev letter confirms that the probability of receiving locked crates has been “continuously” lowered for a while now, but since this hasn’t solved the problem, they’re nixing them altogether.

A pretty annoying tactic to be honest and it’s great to see that the developers are getting rid of it. On 18 December 2019, PUBG will remove these locked crates and from that point on, every crate that players purchase with BP will be free to open, which means that you are getting your rewards instantly. Here’s the breakdown of the new changes:

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 18 December

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.

It looks like that PUBG Corp. have no plans to re-introduce these to PUBG later, meaning that this new system is definitely the way to get rewards from crates from now on. Another neat change comes to the actual quality of the skins that players get from crates. The devs will enhance the visuals of crate skins to ensure that the quality is adequate when compared to the paid weapons.

Locked crates will no longer be available in PUBG beginning December 18, but they’ll still be purchasable on the Steam Marketplace if they already exist, and keys will only be purchasable if a locked crate is in your inventory. On November 20 a new Venetian Crate will be released and will be available for a week.